The Littlest Rogue
by Susan Hilton
Summary: Bester's little girl runs away and crosses over into the Federation universe via a Guardian counterpart deep within the planet Epsilon Three and ends up on the starship Voyager,later encountering Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. A sequel to "The Bester of Both Worlds". Please review.
1. And so it begins

The Littlest Rogue

(The sequel to The Bester of Both Worlds)

Chapter One

Dinah Bester, a tall, reasonably attractive brunette with piercing blue eyes, made her way into the Babylon Five main med lab, where her much older Psi Corps husband lay still unconscious from Dr. Selar's phaser stun. Dr. Franklin greeted her politely and told her that Bester should be coming out of it soon. She nodded a quick acknowledgement, not really caring all that much, and then noticed with a little surprise that Miss Scarlet O'Neil, a telepathic fugitive from the Psi Corps who could make herself invisible at will, was there as well. The woman explained that the mysterious Gary Seven from the other universe had asked her to return for a brief time to determine if Bester's mind had been really wiped of his memories of them. Mrs. Bester read in her thoughts that her cat-like alien shape shifter friend Isis also had a bit of bad luck with her husband. He thought he had killed her when she was in cat form when he was in mental contact with his unfortunate double. Mrs. Bester now knew why Isis ran from them at their first encounter, and now understood that her telepathic statement about not wanting to be a late Bast was not really a reference to the white rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland". Isis, still in human form, had stayed in Seven's apartment to tend to the complex machinery there while Seven and Roberta Lincoln went to visit Mr. Chekov in the Federation star base hospital in the twenty-fourth century. He was there because of Bester's heavy-handed telepathy; having suffered from and almost died of brain injuries by his handiwork. Before Bester awakened from the stun from the energy weapon from the female alien doctor in the Federation universe, Scarlet asked Bester's Psi Corps wife if she had any ideas about informing her husband of their or the newly discovered Guardian portal's existence. Dinah assured her that all of them in the Federation universe were perfectly safe and then sensed that Scarlet was not human. After she had Dr. Franklin confirm that this was so, it made Scarlet exempt from being forced to return to the Psi Corps, and Dinah, not liking to arrest people as much as her monster of a husband,was more than a little relieved that she didn't have to take her into custody. Scarlet informed her that she had just discovered from her Dowd father that she also had shape shifting ability like her new alien friend Isis. Scarlet's Dowd father had been masquerading as the Vorlon ambassador and had been ferrying newly arriving telepaths down to the planet Epsilon Three, the world the Babylon Five station was orbiting, and to the safety of the parallel universe. Dinah also assured Scarlet that Bester would not find out about this development from her. As Dinah watched in amazement, O'Neil, as a demonstration of her newly discovered ability, transformed herself into a mirror image of the female psi cop. Being that Bester would have his telepathic abilities suppressed by the sleeper drugs for at least a week, he would not know that she had been there. As for little Alice, Dinah's five year old daughter, her telepathic ability was still developing, and Dinah was confident that they would be able to block whatever scan the little child may attempt with either of them. She, however, had no qualms about letting her child hear her scold Alice's rotten father for his part in almost killing three people while in that other universe.

Lyta Alexander, a fiery redhead and a commercial telepath, was only recently forced to rejoin the Psi Corps by Bester after being formerly classified as a rogue. She had been entrusted to look after Dinah's little girl while she visited her evil Psi Corps husband. Being that Dinah and Alfred had been married for six years, Dinah knew how far she could go with her criticism of him.

Little Alice listened while her mother spoke to her father, not completely understanding why her mother was saying that her father was setting a fine example for her. She knew nothing about sarcasm,and then grew fearful that perhaps her mother approved of her father's behavior. She also began to hear some not so nice thoughts from some of the people who were entering the med lab. Most were calling her "Bester's little snot", or "devil's spawn" and some even were thinking of harming her, kidnapping her or worse, even killing her just because her last name happened to be Bester. Lyta sensed the little girl's fear, and tried to comfort her, but she could tell the child was becoming increasingly frightened by all the hostile thoughts and intentions towards her. Lyta began to scold the people for their thoughts, telling them that she was just a harmless innocent child. She now considered how Hitler's family must have felt about their infamous relative. She looked down at her charge with compassion, and then, with relief, noticed that she appeared to be less frightened. She tried a gentle probe to see if Alice was calming down, but, to her surprise, the child was blocking her. Lyta decided to respect her privacy and admonished her to stay in the med lab where it was safe and not to go wandering around, in case any of those hostile people were to make good on their foul threats. For now, Alice decided to comply, curious about what Dr. Franklin was doing. She went over to where he was, seeing an unconscious woman in a cryonic container. She gasped and her eyes widened with shock and dismay when she saw the Psi Corps emblem on the lid. Dr. Franklin smiled at her benignly, but she became very frightened, picking up a stray thought about him wondering what it may have been like to be a telepathic child and subjected to Shadow technology. She also picked up the thought that the Psi Corps was behind what was done to these poor souls. She felt tears welling up in her little eyes, but kept them from falling. She thought that this was going to be done to her, and also felt that she didn't want to be a part of an organization that hurt people. She put up a brave front and told the lady named Lyta that she had to go potty, recalling that there were two entrances to the lavatory. She planned to make her escape that way.


	2. Little Alice Escapes

The Littlest Rogue-chapter two

Alice stepped into the lavatory after convincing Lyta that she could go by herself and that she felt safe in her company. As Lyta waited by the entrance the child went into, the little girl darted towards the other entry way, only secure in the knowledge that the red haired Psi Corps telepath, her probes effectively blocked by her, did not know her plans. Alice felt that she had to escape the station at any cost, hearing other thoughts in her mind now that were directing her to the lower sections. Some of the bad people who wanted to hurt her were in the corridor, but they did not seem to notice her as she scurried towards the nearest elevator. She heard another male voice in her head, calling her by name and telling her that she would be protected from harm. He called himself "Mr. Dowd". She was also met by a young man named Byron, who kindly directed her to where she needed to go, knowing full well who she was.

Scarlet's father remembered his own daughter at this age. He only knew that she feared for her safety and that she was on the run from some very bad people who wanted to put Shadow implants in her little body and do other nasty things to her just because her last name happened to be Bester. Shadows had been hideous beings, which had started a war to exterminate races younger than themselves. Their vessels were even uglier, resembling huge multi-legged arachnids. They all were glad when the Shadows and the Vorlons left their space. Being that O'Neil's father had only read the little girl's thoughts, he did not know that she had misinterpreted what she had seen in the med lab. However, both he and Byron were in agreement that no telepath should be forced to join the Psi Corps, so that is the main reason they were helping her escape. Being an alien, Mr. Dowd did not know that human children, as a general rule, needed help and guidance from their parents more than Dowd children. He also could no longer masquerade as the Vorlon ambassador, now that the Vorlons and the Shadows had left for the outer rim of the galaxy. He was now himself, but invisible.

Lyta stood at the entrance for a full ten minutes, suddenly anxious that something was not quite right. She had heard the door to the other entrance open almost immediately after Alice went in, but thought nothing of it, considering that this was a public facility. She called out the child's name with her mind, asking if she was all right. There was no answer. Very concerned now, she strode into the lavatory and found it empty. Little Alice had vanished. Swiftly, Miss Alexander went to the nearest public com link and called security.

Dinah Bester had considered that something like this might happen if she brought her little one to Babylon Five. There was no telling what kind of riff raff was on the station. As a mother, she was, of course, very upset. She told Lyta and Dr. Franklin that if anything bad happened to her child, she was going to hold them personally responsible. They understood that, and told her that the new head of station security was out searching for the little tyke, and that if Zack couldn't find her, nobody could. That didn't instill much confidence with Mrs. Bester. She told them that little Alice was the best player of Hide and Seek on Earth, and if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. When she said this, she put her face in her hands and sobbed, blaming herself for her lapse in judgment. For the first time in their six-year "marriage", Alfred put a hand on her shoulder in an effort to comfort her. He, of course, was still feeling the effects of the double dose of sleeper drugs, administered to him by the now deceased Mr. Cole, who had sacrificed himself to save the life of Commander Ivanova, so Bester couldn't connect with her telepathically. However, he was glad of that, for he only thought of his offspring as a potential valuable commodity for the Psi Corps. He agreed that she should be found for that reason only. Being that the sleeper drugs worked both ways, Dinah could not sense that he had no love whatsoever for their little girl. He offered to make a search for her himself, and Dinah, not able to sense his real feelings, and hoping against hope that he was finally turning over a new leaf and starting to give a damn about somebody other than himself or the stinking Psi Corps, agreed to let him try to find her. Even without his telepathic abilities, he knew that little Alice was probably going to head for the lower sections of the station. He had considered that the Underground Railroad for escaping telepaths was still in operation, even though Dr. Franklin insisted that it wasn't. Bester, of course, didn't believe the good doctor, being that several telepaths had recently mysteriously escaped his clutches.

Dr Franklin was still in the process of trying to figure out a way to remove the complex and sophisticated alien cybernetic devices from the bodies of the cryogenically frozen telepaths, rescued from the Shadow vessel. He thought it was incredible that the implants were still in operation, even though the Shadows and their alien assistants had left. He had given no consideration for his unfortunate fleeting thought about what might have happened if telepathic children were hooked up to the devices, and he now regretted the foolish meanderings of his stressed out, overworked mind.

Unknown to most but O'Neil's Dowd father and the Minbari named Draal, caretaker of the complex machinery inside Epsilon Three; Ambassador Delenn had decided to take on the responsibility of ferrying newly arriving rogue telepaths down to the planet below. She did not yet know about Byron. On this day, she saw several children along with their parents, and thought that little Alice was a member of one of the families present. She loaded them into her personal craft quickly, under pretence of visiting Draal, and they left the station before Bester or the others could get there.


	3. Alice Hides In Neelix's Kitchen

The Littlest Rogue-chapter three

The other telepaths accompanying little Alice knew immediately who she was, but could sense that Bester's little girl was no threat to them and was even more frightened and eager to escape the talons of her Psi cop father than they were. They felt sorry for her and let her pretend to be one of them; which, in reality, she had become. Alice was in the first batch of telepaths to escape into the newly discovered portal that called itself the Guardian of Infinity. The invisible being who called himself "Mr. Dowd" told the child to close her eyes and that he was going to send her to a different place than the others: to a place as far away from Babylon Five or Epsilon Three as the portal could transport, where no one has ever heard of the Psi Corps and where she would be safe. She complied and the other telepaths smiled with approval. She was told that she would not be meeting Mr. Seven or Miss Lincoln; nor would she see the lady who could transform herself into a kitty cat or the lady who could make herself invisible. The little girl was a bit disappointed at this, but kept her peace, considering that she might meet more interesting people once she ended up at her new destination. She didn't know how right she was.

When Delenn returned from her mission, she was a little surprised to see Alice's parents standing in the hangar deck. Her mother was weeping and wringing her hands while her terrible father just stood there, trying without much success to look like he cared. When Dinah saw the alien ambassador, she ran to her, knowing that her pseudo husband had been correct: the Underground Railroad for rogue telepaths was now conducted by Delenn.

"Delenn, our baby is missing!" Dinah said, producing a wallet-sized picture of Alice and handing it to her. "Have you seen her?"

Delenn examined the picture closely, and, yes she did recall seeing the terrified tot. However, she did not know who she had been and told them that she had passed through to the other side. Horrified at first, Dinah thought that her child had been killed, but then read in the alien woman's thoughts that she meant that little Alice had gone into some sort of interdimensional time portal. She sympathized with Mrs. Bester, and told her that her little girl would be safe and would be able to come back if she wanted to, having been informed by Scarlet that Gary Seven gave each telepath who came to his apartment in the twentieth century a communications device just in case they changed their mind and wanted to come back. Still troubled by her daughter's whereabouts and concerned about the people her child might encounter, Dinah continued to sob while Bester did not offer any kind of comfort to his wife. He just looked a bit angry that his telepathic ability had been temporarily stifled and that the Underground Railroad had taken away a piece of the future for the Psi Corps.

Mr. Seven had also been given a picture of the child who had gone missing from the other universe, but she did not materialize with the others. He also knew that little Alice was the daughter of the beast who almost killed Pavel Chekov. Roberta reacted negatively to this, but Seven scolded her, telling her that, by now, she shouldn't be judging a book by its cover. He looked to Scarlet, who had appeared with the first batch of telepaths, for an explanation. She told him that her father and the Guardian had transported the little girl to the starship Voyager in the Delta quadrant, sixty thousand light years and a century from the place she called home.

Little Alice felt a little dizzy and disoriented as she opened her eyes, but it passed quickly. She was in a dark room, but there was a source of light above the head of a lady who appeared to be asleep. She approached the lady, and, to her shock, saw that she also appeared to have Shadow implants imbedded in her skull. Above the lady's head was some sort of electrical device, which was illuminating the area where she stood. Alice stared in terror in dismay for a moment, and then screamed and ran for an exit. A door opened at her approach and she found herself in a well-lit corridor. She squinted for a time, her eyes adjusting to the much greater light, and then ran as fast as her little legs could go. She soon saw another room and scampered into it. It appeared to be some sort of dining hall. There was a small kitchen apart from it, and she remembered her favorite game of Hide and Seek. She opened a cabinet below a sink and hid inside. Terrified and almost hyper ventilating, she heard some voices. She wondered where Mr. Dowd had gone, and why he hadn't spoken to her since her arrival to this new place.

Mr. Tuvok walked with Neelix down the corridor to the mess hall. Neelix was holding a rather large bag of mushrooms that he had purchased on the last planet they had visited. The natives had been friendly, but had told him to be careful about how he used the food he brought with him to Voyager.

"Mr. Neelix, you should let the doctor check those out before you use them for one of your concoctions. They could be dangerous."

"Yes, I know, Mr. Vulcan. I will do it first thing in the morning."

"Please call me by my proper name, Mr. Neelix. You do know that the doctor does not require sleep."

"He might not require it, Mr. Tube Socks, but I do."

If a human had been present, they would have laughed at Neelix's insult, but the Vulcan chief of security just sighed as the other alien lugged the large bag of alien mushrooms into the kitchen and set them on the floor. Alice was peeking out of a crack in the cabinet door and saw the bag of food. She suddenly realized that it had been a long time since she had had anything to eat and she heard her tummy growl. After the strange-looking aliens had left, she crept out of her hiding place, opened the bag, and sampled one. It tasted good, but she suddenly felt very drowsy. Before she could take more than one bite, she fell into a deep sleep on the kitchen floor, the last part of the mushroom she had sampled rolling from her little hand and stopping by the large bag.


	4. Gary Seven Kidnaps B'Elaana

The Littlest Rogue-chapter 4

Seven of Nine had heard the little child scream, but thought at first she had dreamed it. The Borg had captured thousands of children and races during her years with them, and the screams of all those abducted were still in her memory, and had, on occasion, entered her human subconscious. She had been in her regeneration cycle when the mystery child appeared, and Seven of Nine was only half aware of what was happening around her. It took her a few minutes to realize that the little girl's scream was not a dream, and saw the child flit to the door, too terrified to look back. The former Borg knew that it wasn't Naomi. The daughter of a crewmember who was born on Voyager would not be frightened of her, and would have no business being in her presence when she was regenerating. Also, the child she had only glimpsed had been a brunette. Naomi was a blonde. Seven of Nine also realized that the new arrival had been a telepath, for she was able to pick up telepathic brain waves from her cortical implant above her left eye, compliments of Borg technology.

Torres had been doing a major engine recalibration, after the Voyager crew was having difficulty with the warp engines because of the Borg modifications for the last couple of days. They had been testing them at maximum warp and doing some very fast maneuvering, and it had taxed the engines. The work took nearly half the night and she was now exhausted. She yawned and stretched. Still standing, she heard a strange tinkling sound from behind her left shoulder, but thought that she had developed a mild case of tinnitus. She rubbed the back of her aching neck, hearing an announcement from the captain that a small child had been found in Neelix's kitchen, apparently strung out from sampling one of those mushrooms he had procured on the last friendly planet they visited. She briefly wondered why every friendly planet had to have at least one snake in the grass, even though her Klingon half enjoyed all these strange new situations. She also wondered about the mystery child, but being tired, didn't much care at the moment. As soon as she heard the sound, she laid her head onto the pillow on her bed, feeling suddenly very contented without really knowing why. She smiled as she swiftly drifted off into some much-needed sleep.

Gary Seven smiled as well, but his smile was one of relief, knowing that she was half Klingon. He knew they could be very violent when threatened in any way. He was glad that the servo now had a silencer, even though nothing could be done about the chimes when it was first activated. O'Neil told him telepathically why Torres did not react when hearing the servo activate. He had given her enough of the happy beam from his servo to keep her in dreamland for quite a while, more than enough time to abduct her so his new agent could shape shift and take her place. He watched as O'Neil appeared and shape shifted into a mirror image of B'Elanna Torres, both of them suddenly noticing that B'Elanna looked almost exactly like Mrs. Bester, except for the ridges on her forehead and her dark hazel eyes. Seven wished his newest agent luck as he lifted the oblivious engineer and placed her over his shoulder, at the same time pressing the beam- back button on his servo.

O'Neil watched as Gary Seven dematerialized with the woman engineer, knowing that she would have plenty of time for her masquerade. Seven had informed her that she had eight hours before Torres' next shift. Because it was daytime where she had come from, she didn't feel a bit tired. Knowing that the little telepathic fugitive from the Psi Corps was in sickbay, Scarlet decided it would be good to visit her to see if she was all right. Scarlet knew she had to pretend to be the engineer for at least a little while, so nobody would stop her from completing her mission. She also had to figure out where sickbay was. She considered also that concern for the little child might be out of character for B'Elanna, but thought she would take her chances.

Dinah Bester and her cad of a husband had both asked Delenn if they could go into the other universe to retrieve their daughter. Bester, of course, only wanted to get her back for her telepathy and for her potential benefit to the Psi Corps. Dinah was more concerned about her child's well being, and was extremely worried about what kinds of dangers the little girl might encounter. To Delenn, the choice was an obvious one. She agreed to let Mrs. Bester go into the other universe, reminding Alfred about the fact that Seven would shoot him on sight if he should encounter him again. There would be no mistaking him for poor Pavel, either, considering that the Russian was still recuperating on the Federation star base. Delenn also reminded Bester that he still owed her one for letting him venture into that other universe the first time. With those things in mind, he reluctantly allowed his Psi Corps wife to do the honors. Dinah was looking forward to visiting the twentieth century, but was much more concerned about her baby. Draal saw that she was a very distraught and tearful mother, and when he was shown Alice's picture, he recalled that little Alice was the youngest of all the children who had stepped into the portal. He was filled with compassion for Dinah. He called Mr. Seven on the other side, and Supervisor 194 agreed to let her come into his apartment in the twentieth century via the Guardian of Infinity and his safe-like transporter.

Tuvok sensed that there was something very wrong in Neelix's kitchen the moment he stepped back into it. He had decided that he would take the large cloth bag of mushrooms to sickbay for Neelix, knowing the alien's propensity for being somewhat absent-minded on occasion. He raised his eyebrows in astonishment as he saw the little unconscious child. He knelt for a pulse and checked to see if she was breathing. He found that she was still alive, but he was concerned that she may have been poisoned. If she had, there would be no time to lose. He closed the bag of mushrooms with the drawstring at the top, and with one arm, lifted the child while holding on to the top of the bag with his other hand. Quickly, he strode to sickbay and, upon arrival, called the captain about their small unexpected guest.

Gary Seven had placed B'Elanna in the same featureless holding cell that Bester and Miss Winters had been in as Roberta and Mrs. Bester looked on with interest. Roberta, of course, was still somewhat unaccustomed to seeing actual extraterrestrials; having only met one other, before she was in Mr. Seven's employ. Supervisor 194 was expecting Torres to react violently to her abduction, in true Klingon fashion, once the happy beam had worn off. He felt that she had little to complain about, considering that she was getting a good night's sleep and would not have to return to Voyager until Scarlet was successful at retrieving little Alice. Gary Seven was now talking with Mrs. Bester, who still had a worried look on her drawn face. She had some idea why little Alice had run away. She thought that it was mainly Dr. Franklin's fault for scaring her, even though the thoughts of some of the other people in the med lab were not too nice either. She knew that the doctor was very sorry about his fleeting thought, but she was not ready to forgive him just yet. She would when she had her baby back in her arms.


	5. Alice Gets Discovered

The Littlest Rogue-chapter 5

Captain Elisabeth Lochley was new to her position as Babylon Five's commander in chief, but she was a tough-no-nonsense individual. She was well acquainted with Alfred Bester, and did not much care for his often brutal and conniving tactics, especially when it came to rogue telepaths. She also did not know that he cared nothing for his Psi Corps wife or for his sweet little missing daughter. Bester knew that, even though it would still be some time until he regained his telepathic abilities, the captain did not know how he really felt about them. He decided to use that to his advantage, feigning concern over them, saying that he was worried that something might have happened to them; being that it had been nearly twenty-four hours since they went through the portal inside Epsilon Three. He reminded the captain that little Alice was his daughter too, and that he wanted the chance to rescue her and her mother from whatever trouble they may be in and bring them back to where they belonged.

Michael Garibaldi overheard their conversation, and when Bester went back to his temporary quarters, he approached the new captain, telling her that he smelled a rat. The captain knew how the former security chief felt about Bester; that he hated him and wanted to kill him for messing up his life by getting into his head and manipulating his mind. She considered that letting him go into the other universe would stop Garibaldi from committing a homicide, justifiable or not.

Dr. Franklin heard that Mr. Bester had been granted permission to return to the other universe. He had been informed by Scarlet's Dowd father that there was a race of beings similar to the one that had assisted the Shadows with implanting the cybernetic devices into the bodies of the rescued frozen telepaths. They were apparently called the Borg. He was also told that there was a representative of the Borg on the starship where Bester's daughter had been deposited. When Alice had approached the good doctor, he was coincidentally working on removing the implants from Bester's lover, being stumped as to how to proceed. The doctor now saw the opportunity to hopefully gain some knowledge about how to remove the devices without killing their hosts. He did not like the idea of Bester returning to that other universe any more than Garibaldi, but since he was also told that it would be very improbable that Alfred would be running into Chekov or Gary Seven again, he quickly sought him out and asked him to contact the Borg on Voyager to find out if she had a solution to the problem of the implants and to bring the information back with him upon his return with his wife and child. Bester eagerly agreed to do that for the doctor and thanked him with absolutely authentic sincerity.

Scarlet O'Neil decided to use the resources of the ship's computer, once she figured out how to turn on her computer terminal. It was amazingly simple, actually. All she had to do was to call on it and a female voice immediately answered, admonishing her to report to sickbay for a medical evaluation, it obviously coming to the conclusion that she had somehow lost her memory. Scarlet played into that and asked directions. As she made her way into the sickbay, she saw that an older woman, apparently the captain, was speaking with the doctor. Right away, Scarlet thought that there was something odd about him. She could sense no life force from him and no thoughts either, at least not in the human sense. The doctor thought that the half Klingon woman seemed a little too concerned for the little mystery waif, who was still unconscious from consuming one of Neelix's alien mushrooms. He was saying that they contained a natural potent tranquilizer; similar in effect from a sleep aid in pill form developed by Doctor Leonard McCoy a century before. Scarlet couldn't help but smile a little, recalling that Roberta Lincoln had been given a sample of those and had immediately fallen asleep on her living room rug after taking one. The doctor now had extracted enough of the active ingredient from the mushrooms to help any insomniac for the next hundred years. As for the mushrooms, they were now safe to eat, and a crewwoman named Delaney, who occasionally helped out in Neelix's kitchen with the cooking, decided to make pizza with them.

"So, Doctor, how is our little stowaway?" The captain asked.

"She is going to be fine, Captain. Luckily, our little mystery guest only ate a little. The active ingredient in those mushrooms was very potent. If she had eaten any more, she would be dead."

The captain peered over his shoulder at the little girl curiously.

"She looks so human…."

"That's because she is, Captain."

"That's impossible, Doctor! We are sixty thousand light years from Earth! How could she possibly be human?"

"I don't have an answer to that, Captain." The doctor seemed to pause in thought for a moment. "However, she is no ordinary human being. Notice that reading there?" He asked, pointing at an indicator above the child's bed. The captain nodded. "Her neural transmitters are off the charts, meaning only one thing. Our little cherub is a telepath, and a strong one. I have never seen readings like this from any telepathic child from any species before. She is truly a scientific oddity."

"Maybe she's a Q." Tuvok said intelligently. "They are known to disguise themselves as human beings, and have incredible telepathic abilities."

"No, I don't think so." The captain answered thoughtfully. "The Q would have been here by now, offering to take her back to the continuum. Also, a child this young wouldn't resort to subterfuge of that type."

As if on cue, the little girl stirred and opened her eyes. Immediately, she gasped and recoiled and whimpered in fright, seeing all these strangers looking down at her. The doctor spoke.

"Please don't be afraid, little girl. Nobody is going to hurt you."

"If…if you are not going to hurt me, why did you hurt the blonde lady by putting things on her head?"

"What blonde lady?" The captain asked.

"I believe she means me, Captain." Seven of Nine answered instead, now standing behind Scarlet, who was still in the guise of the chief engineer. She addressed the child. "I have not been injured by anyone on this vessel, young lady. These things on my head are Borg implants. I was regenerating when you appeared. By the way, even though your scream was understandable, I would not have harmed you."

"Your name is Seven of Nine?" The child asked in wonderment, apparently using her telepathic ability.

"Actually, no. My given name is Annika. Seven of Nine is my Borg designation. I was abducted by them when I was a little older than you are. Captain Janeway rescued me and now I am a part of her collective."

The captain glanced at Seven of Nine, just a little puzzled that she would call the crew a collective, then shrugged it off and addressed the child gently, seeing that she was still wary.

"What is your name?"

"Alice."

"Do you have a last name?"

The child nodded.

"Uh huh. But I'm afraid to tell you."

"Why are you afraid to tell us your last name?" Tuvok asked.

"Because some people wanted to hurt me because of my last name." The child answered, starting to cry. They all realized it would be a while before they could find out more about her and how she got to the Delta quadrant.


	6. Torres Awakens in Seven's Apt

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 6

Puzzled as to why the person he thought was Torres was in sickbay, the doctor looked at her curiously. He considered that she may be too keyed up to sleep and had come for a remedy. He smiled, being more than happy to oblige, now having a nearly inexhaustible supply of sedatives, thanks to Neelix. To his surprise, she declined, stating that she was just a little curious about their little guest, who was now enjoying a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs, her favorite food, compliments of the doctor's replicator. The doctor then considered that the chief engineer's sleeplessness might be a cultural thing, being that she was half Klingon. Perhaps she was trying to test her stamina, and had come to sickbay to see if that would harm her human half. The child had called the pasta dish "pahsketti", and they puzzled over that for a moment, until Seven of Nine corrected her. Alice was calmer now, sensing that these people were not going to harm her. The doctor commented that spaghetti looked very much like dead Klingon gagh, but from the little girl's happy expression, figured that it probably tasted a lot better. The captain thought it smelled delicious. The doctor told the little girl that they wouldn't care if her last name was Kodos or Singh. She was not responsible for her father's behavior. Little Alice did not know who those people were, but from the context, figured out that they had been bad men like the people that she had eluded on Babylon Five. She was still, however, reluctant to divulge her last name, and did not know how to explain to them how she got on their ship. The Voyager crew did figure out that her father was also telepathic; but from her description, brutal, cunning and oily, and would probably stop at nothing to find her and bring her back to wherever it is she came from, forcing her to eventually join that group of telepathic police officers they had never heard of before. For the moment, though, she was perfectly safe. She was also reconsidering her fearful reaction to her mother's statement to her father after he awakened from the phaser stun. Her mom had never before gave her any cause to be frightened of her, and now Alice was beginning to realize that she had probably misunderstood her. She looked up from her meal, and, for the first time, got a good look at who they all thought was the chief engineer. Her jaw dropped in astonishment.

"_Mommy?_ What happened to your forehead?"

The others present looked at each other in equal astonishment. "Torres" spoke quickly, so as not to arouse further suspicion from those present. Tuvok, now considering that little Alice was not a threat to security, had gone back to his post on the bridge. He had, of course, sensed that there was something a bit odd about "Torres", but he did not deem it worthy of pursuit.

"No, Alice. I'm not your mommy. My name is Lieutenant B'Elaana Torres. I'm the chief engineer. Welcome to the starship Voyager."

"But…but you look just like her!" She had placed a forkful of spaghetti on her plate after swallowing and continued to stare at the woman with wonder.

The real chief engineer of the starship Voyager came to her senses after a good sleep. Startled by her surroundings, she leapt off the plain white cot. She remembered that, when she was younger, she had had a precognitive dream about a featureless white room exactly like this. At that time, she had been frightened, not knowing what to make of the dream. Now, as an adult, she was astonished that the vision had come true. Where she was, however, was a mystery. The last thing she remembered was being in her quarters, getting ready for bed. She had heard a strange noise from behind her…then she was here in this weird cell, wherever "here" was. She heard a low hum of a force field at the entrance to the cell, and figured that she had been abducted by some unknown alien race. The first duty of a Starfleet officer when being abducted in such a manner was to attempt an escape. Being an engineer, she decided to put an ear to the cell wall to see if she could detect the power source for the force field. To her disappointment, she heard absolutely nothing. She heard another low hum from behind her and turned quickly, ready to defend herself. She blinked, seeing the face of a rather young human girl on a seamless viewing screen.

"Who are you and why have I been abducted?" Torres demanded to know, staring menacingly at the young blonde lady, who appeared to be a little frightened at her reaction to being imprisoned in such a manner.

"My name is Roberta Lincoln. Relax, Miss Torres. We have placed you in this cell for security reasons. You will not be harmed, I assure you. My employer, Mr. Seven, instructed me to talk to you once you awakened from his servo happy beam." The young human female paused, and seemed to be looking her over. "Forgive me for staring, but I have never seen a Klingon before. My employer told me that your people react violently to being kidnapped and forcibly confined in this manner. I apologize for that, but it was necessary. We did not know what your reaction would be, and we could not risk a violent altercation. You are here because one of our operatives is on your ship, posing as you. She is there to rescue the small child that your Vulcan security officer discovered. She needs to return to her own universe. It just so happens that you bear an uncanny resemblance to her mother, who is also here."

"I see." Torres responded, now calming herself, but still wary. "Where exactly is here?"

"You are on twentieth century Earth in a cell adjacent to Gary Seven's apartment."

After the child had finished eating, the doctor released her from sickbay, and Scarlet/Torres was asked by the captain to accompany her during the remainder of her stay on Voyager. She had also asked the woman she thought was the chief engineer to introduce the child to the ship's youngest resident, Naomi Wildman. The captain thought that having someone nearer to her age would set the new arrival more at ease, and also took Naomi aside and asked her to find out if she could what her last name was and how she got on the ship. Naomi agreed to do it, more than happy to be thought of as a crew member. She felt very grown up and glad to be asked, and thought it would be fun to meet someone her own age for a change. She thought it would be fun to introduce the new arrival to her favorite place on the ship, the holodeck.


	7. Alice and the Holodeck

The Littlest Rogue-chapter 7

Torres had some major doubts that she was in the twentieth century, and had no clue as to who Mr. Seven or Miss Lincoln were, having never heard of either. For one thing, she knew for certain that technology to make a force field didn't exist in the century the young lady named Roberta said she was in. Indeed, there was scant evidence to prove that she was in that era from her point of view. Something must have read her mind, for the girl on the viewing screen spoke again, telling her that she would release her from the strange holding cell to prove it. She heard the force field go off and stepped out of the cell. She went down a short hallway and was met by the girl named Roberta and by a very worried-looking woman who looked just like her, except that she was human.

"Greetings, Miss Torres. This is Mrs. Bester, the mother of the little girl who just appeared on your ship. Come with me and I will prove to you that you are four hundred years in the past and on Earth."

Mrs. Bester stepped forward.

"How's my baby? Is she all right?"

Torres could see how distraught the older woman was and her human half felt empathy towards her. However, she knew very little about the small child, having only heard that she was found unconscious on the floor of Neelix's kitchen after consuming a tainted alien mushroom. However, she didn't want to needlessly increase the poor woman's anxiety.

"As far as I know, ma'am." She looked at Roberta curiously. If she was indeed in the twentieth century, the younger lady surely had dressed the part. She was wearing a white peasant blouse with embroidered flowers, a fringed tan leather vest and a matching mini skirt. Her legs were adorned with white fish net stockings and on her feet were white go go boots. She had seen this style of dress illustrated in a history book about the nineteen sixties. However, that still didn't prove that she was in the latter part of the twentieth century. For all she knew, the girl named Roberta could be a shape shifter or some sort of alien illusion, perhaps from an alien race that had tuned in to Earth broadcasts from four hundred light years away. Also, it would have been impossible for someone from the twentieth century to abduct someone from the twenty-fourth in the same manner that she had been.

As she was escorted into the next room by the girl named Roberta, they were met by an older gentleman who identified himself as Gary Seven, apparently some sort of intergalactic secret agent, sent to Earth by some unknown alien race to prevent the inhabitants of twentieth century Earth from destroying themselves before they could develop into a peaceful people. Torres knew from Earth history that it would take at least another two hundred years for that to happen. Mrs. Bester spoke up and said that she was from the twenty-third century in a parallel universe, and the dream of peace was still just that. She had also read her mind about the fate of her little girl, knowing that the half alien engineer from the starship called Voyager had very limited knowledge about her offspring. B'Elaana looked around the room in wonder. It appeared to be part office space and part living quarters. To her left was a large office desk. A small green blinking cube was set into it, beside what appeared to be pen holders. In front of her was a shelving unit containing wine glasses. To her right was a large leather comfortable-looking brown couch and next to that a book case. The man named Seven beckoned her to a window and she looked through it in puzzlement. She could see what appeared to be internal combustion conveyances on the street below. She tried to think of what they were once called…automobiles. Yes, that was it. There were lots of them. She had only seen automobiles in museums, not actual working models. She could see that the people on the sidewalks below were dressed in period clothing. She was almost convinced that what she had been told was true, except for the inconsistencies of the remarkably advanced technology of the holding cell she had just been in and the still inexplicable method of how she got to this place. She heard a low meow at her feet and looked down, seeing a beautiful black cat with a shimmering ribbon collar.

"Thank you, Isis. I will explain." Seven spoke to the cat. As if it understood what he was saying, the cat started to purr and then jumped onto a burnt orange colored chair. Torres watched with astonishment as the "cat" transformed into a woman. It smiled at her as Seven explained how she got there and how they had acquired such sophisticated technology. He even showed her the safe-like transporter they had apparently used to bring her here, hidden behind the shelves holding the wine glasses.

Chakotay and Harry Kim were at the controls beside the entrance to the holodeck when the two little girls arrived. Chakotay had been asked by the captain to program some educational material for Naomi, and now realized that he and Harry had two little students. He introduced himself to the new arrival, and then told the girls that Harry would be teaching the lesson today. The subject was Federation history; namely the last century and the Five Year Mission.

The two little girls walked onto an exact replica of the bridge of the starship Enterprise, Alice learning that the starship was commanded by someone named James T Kirk. Alice looked around in wonder. She cautiously touched the orange railings that were between the captain's chair and the helm and navigation. The man named Harry Kim told her that the black lady to her right was named Uhura and that she had been a communications officer. Being that the program was interactive, the lady asked what he meant by 'had been'. Harry smiled and told her 'never mind'. The lady turned back to whatever she was doing. A man with pointed ears was next to the lady, peering into a hooded viewer. Alice watched her new friend Naomi step down and stand beside the captain's chair, beckoning her to follow. She complied, noticing that there was something very familiar about the man seated at the navigation station. She knew that Naomi had been asked to find out more about her, so decided to project her last name into her mind, asking her to please not reveal it to anyone else right now. Naomi had an amazed expression on her face, and wondered what was so wrong with Bester as a last name. She didn't want to pry, however, and watched with interest as Alice touched the shoulder of the Chekov simulation. The holographic simulation turned and smiled sweetly at her, but Alice gasped and turned pale. Harry Kim asked her what was wrong as she started to scream in fright. She tried to find a place to hide, but could not, so went to a corner, curling herself into a little ball and crying. Naomi received another telepathic communication that told her that the man they knew as Mr. Chekov looked exactly like a much younger version of her father and that Alice was terrified of him.


	8. Scarlet O'Neil Reveals Herself

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 8

Harry Kim tried to coax little Alice out of the corner, but she wouldn't budge. She had her hands over her face, obviously thinking that if she couldn't see herself, then nobody else could either and once again appeared to be terrified. Harry had a hard time understanding why the little girl was so frightened of the holographic simulation. Torres was soon at her side, and, to Harry's increased puzzlement, appeared to be communicating with the child telepathically. She looked up at Harry, and then informed him that she was not who she appeared to be and to call the captain immediately. Skeptical about her sudden claim and a little curious about the urgency in her voice, he did as he was told; still believing that the woman he thought was the chief engineer outranked him. As he complied, the woman he thought was Torres morphed into her true self and introduced herself to a very surprised Naomi. She told those present that Naomi misinterpreted Alice's telepathic message to her; that she wasn't frightened by the holographic image of Mr. Chekov, but of the much older face of her father, which had superimposed itself over the face of the image of the former Enterprise navigator. Little Alice had a rare psychic gift that only a few telepaths possessed in her universe. Despite the fact of the sleeper drugs working both ways, incredibly, Alice was able to sense that her father was on his way, meant to kidnap her, and force her to become a part of the Psi Corps. She would quite probably never see her mother again, and little Alice would be destined to be raised by her nefarious father. Scarlet could not let that happen, so had decided to reveal herself to the Voyager crew.

As soon as the captain entered the holodeck, she realized that Tuvok had been correct in sickbay. The woman who they all thought had been Torres had succeeded in calming their new little charge, and the child seemed happy to see her, although a bit bewildered. Tuvok was now at the captain's side, brandishing a phaser set on stun. However, there appeared to be little immediate danger from their unexpected new arrival, who raised her hands in surrender.

"I'm unarmed, Mr. Tuvok. Please do not fire. I am not here to harm anyone."

He did not lower his weapon, but did not fire either. He glanced at the captain for further orders.

"Who are you, what have you done with Miss Torres, and why are you here?"

"My name is Scarlet O'Neil. I have done nothing with your officer, and I am here to make sure that little Miss Bester is not harmed." She glanced down at Alice, who apparently was a little shocked that she had the audacity to reveal her last name. "I'm sorry, honey, but it was necessary. The captain has a right to know what she's about to meet."

"Where is my chief engineer?" The captain demanded to know, glancing at Tuvok, who held his gun steady.

"She's on twentieth century Earth, Captain, in my new employer's secret apartment headquarters. I assure you that she's perfectly safe and will return as soon as I have rescued little Alice and returned her to her mother before her evil father can capture her and force her to return to their universe with him."

The captain, looking astonished, told her security officer to lower his weapon, and then escorted their new arrival, Naomi, Ensign Kim and little Alice into her ready room. She had heard rumors before they left the Alpha Quadrant that someone named Bester from another universe had seriously injured Captain Chekov telepathically, and that the latter was recovering on Starbase 515. At the time she heard the rumors, she had not given them much credence, considering that everyone believed that Pavel Chekov died a half a century ago. Puzzled as to how the woman who called herself Scarlet O'Neil had come to be on her ship in the Delta Quadrant, or, more importantly, how Lt. Torres had been whisked away to the twentieth century, she glanced at Harry Kim, who looked as if he wanted to say something.

"Go ahead, Mr. Kim. You have the floor."

"Captain…as you know, Tom Paris and I are quite knowledgeable about twentieth century science fiction. I know of a comic strip called 'Invisible Scarlet O'Neil', quite popular in the early nineteen forties. Of course, I always assumed that Miss O'Neil was a fictional character, not a real person."

"Quite correct, Mr. Kim." The woman named Scarlet said with a cautious smile. "Allow me to explain. My father is a Dowd and my mother was a Betazoid. They chose that name for me because my favorite thing as a child was making myself invisible. I also believe that little Alice's father is going to try and arrest me, despite the fact that I am not human. He seems to feel that since I was pretending to be human for the last three hundred years, that I should be counted as a human."

The captain returned the cautious smile.

"You mean four hundred years. This is the twenty-fourth century, Miss O'Neil."

"Yes, Ma'am, but I have been living in that parallel universe that little Miss Bester was born in. You are a century ahead of us. Alice's father is a part of a group of telepaths called the Psi Corps. He is a Psi cop, a police officer specially trained to manage and control the activities of telepaths. He is one who seems to take great pleasure in making the lives of those telepaths who do not want to join the Corps miserable, and he has no qualms about killing those who dare to try and escape the custody of the Psi Corps. I'm sure, by the way, that little Alice's mother would be very happy to know how kind you have been to her little rogue. I'm here to make sure her father does not do her any harm once he arrives."

"I see. About your new employer: who is he? How did you get to be sixty thousand light years and a century from where you were?

"Captain, we don't have a lot of time, but I will answer as quickly as I can. He calls himself Supervisor 194 and his code name is Gary Seven. He is a human being raised by an unknown alien race, sent to Earth to see to it that the inhabitants of your planet develop into a peaceful people. I was sent here to protect Miss Bester from harm and now it appears that her father, who is a dead ringer for your Mr. Chekov, is about to arrive. I have to make sure he doesn't present a danger for your crew as well."

Suddenly, the intruder alert alarm went off. Little Alice and Miss O'Neil knew immediately that Mr. Bester had arrived. The child whimpered and O'Neil hugged her protectively.

"Speak of the devil and he will appear." Harry Kim said solemnly.


	9. Bester Appears on Voyager

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 9

Gary Seven had been informed by Isis of the fact that Miss Torres had almost tried to put her hand through the wall in an effort to take out the force field to his security cell. He told her that he was very glad she didn't do it, being that she would have probably broken every bone in her hand. The walls to the cell were made of cast rhodinium, a substance harder than diamonds. He considered that Captain Janeway needed her crew to be able-bodied, and was glad that she didn't try it. He knew that if he should ever vacate this apartment, then the substance would have to be removed; being that it did not exist anywhere on twentieth century Earth. If he should let it remain, then there would be too many questions sometime in the future. He knew that alien conspiracy theories were starting to gain popularity even in the sixties; the Roswell incident being no exception.

Dinah Bester was calmer now, but still had the look of a very worried mother. As Miss O'Neil checked in with them via her servo communicator, Mrs. Bester had a shocked look on her face when she learned that Captain Lochley of Babylon Five had allowed her Psi Corps husband to go to Voyager to retrieve little Alice. She wondered what possessed the captain to let him go back, considering how ruthless and cunning he could be, even in his present state; not being able to use telepathy because of the sleeper drugs still in his system. She was now worried about the people on that ship in the future, knowing now how kind they had been to her child. Whatever Alfred was planning, it did not bode well for the Voyager crew or for little Alice. He had tried to kidnap their daughter on many occasions, and had traumatized the child mentally, telling her such terrible things such as her mother didn't love her and that if she didn't come with him willingly, he would make sure she would never see her again. To his credit, he never physically abused their little girl, but the mental abuse had taken its toll. Alice had a very good reason for fearing her father. He was vicious, evil and cruel. For this reason, Dinah had taught her how to play Hide and Seek, and how to avoid him when she knew that Alfred was going to try and kidnap her again. Giving her this skill kept her father from his attempted abductions, and also gave the child some self confidence and stability. Dinah loved her child very much, and did everything she could to make sure little Alice knew it.

Alfred had materialized on the Voyager Bridge, right behind Tom Paris and in front of Tuvok, who swiftly hit the intruder alert alarm, called the captain to the bridge, withdrew his phaser, quickly set it on stun, and aimed it at the new arrival. The stranger glared at him for a moment, obviously familiar with Vulcans and standard issue Starfleet firearms, raised his hands in surrender with a disarming smile, and announced that he was unarmed, pleading with him not to fire, and that he came in peace. Tuvok noticed that the older human intruder resembled someone famous from Starfleet history, but there was something very sinister about him. The Vulcan stepped down from his post and frisked the new arrival, not yet ready to believe that the man was unarmed. He was dressed all in black, with leather gloves on his hands, and on the lapel of his coat, there was a strange badge of some sort. In an inside pocket, Tuvok detected some papers. He asked to see them and the familiar looking dark-haired stranger graciously obliged, explaining that they were schematics for some sort of alien cybernetic implants and that he was here for two reasons: one, to retrieve his little daughter and the other, to enlist the help of their doctor to remove the supposed implants from some of his people. Satisfied that Mr. Bester was not carrying any firearms, Tuvok watched as the captain swiftly made her way on the bridge. She also had procured a phaser from the weapons locker, had it set on stun, and aimed it at him. Her eyes narrowed when she realized who it was.

"Is that really necessary, Captain?" Bester asked with a slick smile. She had an air of authority about her, and he made an educated guess that she was in command, noting also that she had more rank pips on her collar than anyone else in the room.

"I am afraid it is, Mr. Bester. Your reputation has preceded you. Come with me. Tuvok, I have him covered. Lower your weapon and please accompany us to the briefing room. Secure from general quarters."

"Acknowledged." The black Vulcan said simply, doing as he was told, shutting off the intruder alert alarm. He still eyed the new arrival warily, also sensing that this man was not as benevolent as he appeared. He knew that the man's little daughter was terrified of her father, and he could now see why. The man looked like he was a member of the ancient Gestapo, and despite his calm exterior, something evil was lurking just under the surface.

Little Alice and Miss Wildman were still in the holodeck, but Naomi had called up her favorite story book character, a creature named Flotter. Flotter was supposedly made of water, and had blue "skin". He was very friendly towards the two children, and, even though Alice could not sense anything from him, felt comfortable with him, despite his odd appearance. There were plenty of places to hide in this program, just in case her father tried to come and get her. Naomi told her new little friend that Captain Janeway would not let anything bad happen, and that if her father had any intentions of kidnapping her, he would have to get through the crew of Voyager first. Harry had stayed with the two little girls, under the captain's orders to make sure no harm came to either of them, and he readily agreed with Naomi's assertions. He also thought it was freaky that Alice's father looked exactly like an older version of Mr. Chekov, Alice projecting an image of her dad in his mind, complete with his sinister black psi cop uniform.

Bester was on his best behavior, and put on an exterior of benevolence in order to enlist the help of the chief medical officer and the representative of the Borg, who had joined them in the briefing room. He found her to be quite lovely and was surprised to find out that their chief medical officer was a hologram, and had given the schematics for the Shadow implants to him, explaining the situation on the space station in the other universe. For the time being, he would have to gain their trust, so they would let their guard down and also let him retrieve his daughter. The captain informed him that he had no jurisdiction in this universe, and that his child had the right to due process. In other words, he couldn't just grab her and make off with her. He knew even without his telepathy that the captain was wary of him, and had asked him why little Alice was so terrified of her own father. He said that he had that effect on many people, and that his little girl did not understand what he did for a living. He was, after all, a police officer, and that sometimes it was necessary to kill in self defense. He also assured them that no harm would come to Alice. She was, after all, his child, and certainly no ordinary rogue telepath. Janeway wondered how he treated adult rogue telepaths, but he did not say much about that, knowing that if he did, it would serve to incriminate him.

Garibaldi, after assuring Captain Lochley that he would not and could not kill Bester, because of the Asimov conditioning that Bester had implanted in his psyche, had asked to go into the other universe and rescue little Alice from her terrible father and bring her back to her mother. The captain had kept in contact with Delenn's friend Draal inside Epsilon Three, and explained that Mrs. Bester was on twentieth century Earth in Gary Seven's apartment. While he was there in the other universe, he would have to contact Miss O'Neil on the starship Voyager, who, he was told, was masquerading as a half alien woman engineer named Torres. He did not tell the captain that he intended to get his revenge on Mr. Bester. Even though he couldn't kill him, he could at least injure him, and then he would rescue the little girl and go back to the twentieth century with her and hand her back to her mother, after, of course, he disposed of Mr. Bester.


	10. Michael Garibaldi to the Rescue

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 10

Michael Garibaldi materialized inside what appeared to him to be a highly sophisticated holographic simulation of a forest scene, complete with a babbling brook. He immediately caught sight of little Alice and her new young friend and smiled. The reason he knew that this was a holographic representation was that there was some kind of archway to the left of where he had appeared. A young Oriental chap and a woman whom he recognized as Scarlet O'Neil were within it. The young man seemed to be feverishly working on something while the alien woman turned and greeted him with surprise. She obviously read in his thoughts why he was here and realized that both of them were on the same mission. She read in the young man's mind that he thought the new arrival was a stray program and quickly communicated to him telepathically that he wasn't. The two children were too busy playing to take notice of his arrival for the moment. The young man continued to work on whatever he was doing, sensing that the new intruder was not a threat to them.

Ensign Kim did not feel it necessary to sound the intruder alert alarm, even though the ship was on yellow alert ever since Bester came aboard. To him, the man looked harmless enough, and the ensign was too busy programming the Flotter character to not divulge little Miss Bester's whereabouts to anyone but the crew or Miss O'Neil. He realized that the woman was a telepath also, but did not want to take any chances. Besides, if this new guy showed any kind of malice at all, he was able to withdraw his sidearm at any moment. Protecting little Alice was a top priority, according to the captain's orders. With that in mind, he did contact the captain via a com link and informed her of Garibaldi's presence in the holodeck.

"Wow, it's Mr. Garibaldi!" O'Neil announced with a pleasant smile. "It's nice to see you, sir. You do know that it was unnecessary of you to show up. I am here to rescue little Alice and bring her back to her mother." She stepped forward towards him and studied his face for a moment. "I see in your thoughts that you want to get revenge on Bester for what he did to you."

"You got that right." Garibaldi said, smiling back at her. However, she could tell that he was a bit annoyed at being scanned telepathically. He decided after a couple of minutes to take that in stride and that it was best to introduce himself to the young Oriental man. "Hello, sir. My name is Michael Garibaldi. I am from the other universe. Captain Lochley let me enter your universe to rescue Miss Bester and to keep her rotten father from harming her. I see Miss O'Neil has beaten me to the punch, so I am here to help keep the child safe." He paused in thought for a moment, and then continued. "How about if I distract him while you do the honors? I know that Bester's telepathy has been temporarily disabled with sleeper drugs, so there will be no way for him to know what we are planning."

O'Neil smiled back at him.

"An excellent idea, Mr. Garibaldi, although he's no dummy. He will probably guess what we are doing."

"By then it will be too late. What is your name, sir?"

"I am Ensign Harry Kim. I see you know Miss O'Neil."

"Yes, we are acquainted with each other. Nice to meet you, Mr. Kim. Where is Bester, anyway?"

Alfred Bester was still in the briefing room with the captain, Seven of Nine and the holographic doctor. He had been informed that the doctor felt confident that he could release the frozen telepaths in the other universe from their cybernetic implants. They were quite similar to Borg technology, so both he and Seven of Nine were able to draw up schematics that would benefit the unfortunate telepaths from the other universe. Bester appeared to be satisfied that at least half of his mission had met with success, thanked them graciously, and, as he once again asked to see his daughter, the message came through on a small viewing screen on the briefing room table about the arrival of Mr. Garibaldi. Bester started and seemed to turn a little pale. He knew that he was in trouble, knowing that the former head of Babylon Five security was out for revenge. He also knew that there was a window of opportunity for Garibaldi to harm or kill him, even with the Asimov conditioning that he had programmed into the man. In order for the conditioning to work, he needed his telepathic ability to control Mr. Garibaldi's thoughts and actions. Without it, he was in deep do do.

Dr. Franklin had realized after Mr. Garibaldi had left the station that the former chief of security had a brief window of opportunity to exact his revenge on Bester, but was too busy to tell him. He didn't think it was particularly bad that Garibaldi had this chance, knowing full well how Bester had almost destroyed his life. However, he didn't believe in killing, even if Bester was a lowlife scum.

Gary Seven had informed Miss Torres that it was time for her to return to Voyager. The half Klingon woman had enjoyed her brief respite from the starship, but she was also eager to return, knowing that the captain needed her expertise in keeping the starship running. They had a very long journey ahead of them. She thanked Mr. Seven for his hospitality as she was ushered into his safe-like transporter.

As Garibaldi left the holodeck for the briefing room with Mr. Kim, Miss O'Neil called little Alice and told her to say her goodbyes to her new little friend and that they were going back to Mr. Seven's secret apartment headquarters where her mother was waiting for her. She watched as Miss Torres materialized in the holodeck, and then smiled at her warmly as she held little Miss Bester's hand as they disappeared.


	11. Torres Goes Back to Voyager

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 11

As Scarlet and Alice materialized inside Gary Seven's safe-like transporter, their first sight was that of a very familiar-looking man, who appeared to be in an old-fashioned twentieth century wheelchair. He was seated to their left, facing the concealed computer. Little Alice thought that it was her father, screamed in fright, and tried to hide. Just as a precaution, Scarlet withdrew her servo and aimed it at him. He smiled weakly, and using his newly acquired telepathic ability, told her who he was and that he was unarmed. She lowered the weapon, realizing that he was no threat no anyone. Alice's mother flew to her little girl's side, telling her telepathically that it was her father's double, recovered enough from his injuries he had sustained at the hands of Alfred Bester to be released from the Federation star base hospital, but still not well enough to come back to work. Scarlet read in his mind that he was only there for a visit, recalling now about how worried they had all been about him. Both Roberta and Captain Chekov looked at the child with compassion. Pavel felt very sorry that he scared her, and quite understood her reaction. Alice, after getting over her initial fright, soon came to realize that the man named Chekov was not there to hurt her. Gary Seven explained to Alice and her mother that he was in an old-fashioned wheelchair, just in case they were observed by a denizen of the twentieth century. Pavel explained that he would still have to undergo some physical and speech therapy and it would be some time before he would regain his strength. He smiled wanly again, saying telepathically that he never thought he would see the day when it would be a pleasure to meet anyone who was part Klingon. They all knew that Lieutenant Torres would have quite a tale to tell when she returned to the twenty-fourth century.

Dinah held her little one close, who was still crying.

"Baby, it's all right. You are safe now. Mommy's here. Don't be afraid. That's your father's double. His name is Pavel Chekov and he's not mean." Dinah gave her another hug and kissed her gently on her forehead. "Oh, honey, please don't do that to Mommy again! I love you, my little sugar plum."

Alice looked up in her eyes and smiled, wiping her tears with her hands.

"Do you forgive dotter Franklin now, Mommy?"

Dinah and the others smiled in amusement. Tears of joy were in her eyes.

"Of course, my little telepath."

Scarlet left their side and sat wearily on the brown leather couch. Mr. Seven noticed and told her that she still had some unfinished business with Mr. Bester and Captain Janeway. She had to go back to the starship and thank the captain for Mrs. Bester. Dinah glanced at her again.

"Thank you so much for bringing my baby back, Miss O'Neil. Thank you also for conveying my appreciation for Captain Janeway and her crew for taking such good care of her. I hope Alfred isn't going to cause trouble for you or for them."

"Knowing Alfred the way we do, he probably will. I read in Mr. Kim's mind that he was planning a little deception for him. In order to pull it off successfully, a telepath has to be there to insure that Bester still has his abilities curtailed by the sleeper drugs. The ensign didn't want to tell the captain that Alice and I had left, so it just might work."

Dinah looked back down at Alice, who was now looking back at Captain Chekov shyly, still astounded at his uncanny resemblance to her wicked father. He smiled back at her gently, apologizing telepathically again for scaring her, and knowing with his newly acquired telepathy what Mr. Kim was planning, and thought it was brilliant.

"Honey, I have some good news. Your mean old father will never bother us again. I asked Mr. Seven if it would be all right if we both stayed here in this universe. He had no objections. We can now go anywhere we want and we will never be bothered by the Psi Corps again."

Lt. Torres arrived in the Voyager's holodeck just in time to find out what Ensign Kim was planning. The young man had asked Naomi to go back to her quarters so she wouldn't get hurt, and just in case Bester got his telepathic abilities back early. Naomi, although a little disappointed that her new friend was probably gone for good, complied. She found that it was also not much fun to play alone in the holodeck with just the story book characters and the crew of Voyager for company. Garibaldi was very much impressed with how mature the young child was. He noticed that she was part alien. It was possible that her alien half was responsible for her quicker maturation process. She seemed quite grown up for one so young. Ensign Kim smiled at him and told him that she was nothing compared to the holographic doctor's former assistant, Kes. She had been from a species called the Ocampa, and looked like an adult, even though she was only a couple of years old. Garibaldi learned with amazement that her species lifespan only averaged nine years.

Unknown to Torres, Scarlet had decided to maintain her masquerade as the chief engineer. She also had no desire to inform the captain or crew just yet that she wasn't Torres. She had re-appeared in the briefing room, and did a very convincing job of pretending to be the chief engineer. Bester and the other were still conversing about the cybernetic devices and Scarlet felt that she should make sure that Bester stayed put long enough for her counterpart to help Mr. Kim come up with a good facsimile of little Alice. By now, Bester seemed a little agitated and out of sorts, obviously expecting to win the captain's trust long enough to retrieve his little rogue and bring her back to the Psi Corps. Scarlet, in her disguise as Torres, smiled a little. She was very glad to know that the child was now forever out of his reach. It was also lucky for her that he still could not read her thoughts.

Garibaldi, before leaving Babylon Five, had been given a time travel stabilizer by Zathros, modified so it would bring both him and Bester back to their own universe. The former chief of security found it very ironic and somewhat amusing that he was Bester's only ticket home. Before Bester had stepped into the newly discovered Guardian portal, neither it nor Zathros had given thought to how the Psi cop was going to get back to their universe, so eager were they to get him out of their hair for a while.


	12. Bester Gives Pavel a Heart Attack

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 12

Zathros knew about Garibaldi's hatred towards Mr. Bester and quite understood it. He wasn't too fond of him and the Psi Corps in general either. Garibaldi had told him what Mr. Seven had said: that he would shoot Bester on sight if he should ever encounter him again. With that in mind, Zathros had, unbeknownst to Garibaldi, programmed the device that he was now holding to re-enter Seven's apartment, where, despite the Asimov conditioning Garibaldi had received from Bester, the former security chief of the Babylon Five space station would at last have his revenge.

After Bester had successfully obtained the information from the holographic doctor and Seven of Nine on how to remove the Shadow implants from the unfortunate telepaths in his universe, Bester now pleaded with Captain Janeway to take him to his daughter.

She regarded him still with a look of distrust. The crew had become quite fond of the sweet little girl.

"I'm still not convinced of your sincerity that you will not harm your child, Mr. Bester. She is obviously terrified of you and will probably not wish to return with you. She is a sweet, lovely child and I would hate to think of anything bad happening to her upon your return to your universe."

Bester sighed in apparent frustration, stood with his hands on the table and faced the captain.

"I am not the Taliban, Captain. I know I may appear to some as a malevolent monster, but that is a part of my job. Terror must be maintained so you mundanes—no offense will respect us psi cops. I assure you that little Alice will not be harmed just because she ran away. I can understand her reasons why she felt it necessary to do so. She is my daughter and I care very much what happens to her. After all, she is already a P-10 and would be a great asset to the Psi Corps when she grows up. I could not harm her for that reason and the fact that she's family." He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. "You wouldn't want to break up a family now, would you?"

The captain, now convinced that the man who looked remarkably like the former navigator of the Federation's flag ship was sincere, but also thinking she could never respect a telepath who obviously thought of non-telepaths as inferior, put her dislike of this man aside, shook her head no and guided him towards the holodeck.

Scarlet, still in the guise of Lt. Torres, decided to tell Tuvok telepathically who she really was, begging him not to tell the captain just yet, fearing that Bester might get wind of what they had done in the holodeck. He agreed to not inform Janeway just yet, but knew that the gig would soon be up anyway, also having been informed of the real Lt. Torres' return to Voyager. Scarlet knew that time was running out concerning Bester and the return of his stifled telepathic abilities caused by the sleeper drugs. They would have to make this look good, to successfully deceive Bester into believing that the holographic version of Alice was the real thing.

Ensign Kim smiled as Scarlet entered the holodeck with Garibaldi, Bester, the captain and Tuvok, noticing her touch the cartilage behind her right ear when Bester wasn't looking. She instantly vanished, but Tuvok knew that she was still there. He knew then that she had bought some time for the real Torres and Mr. Kim to complete their work on manufacturing a fake Alice. The ensign had programmed the fake Alice to act just like the real one and with Torres' help, had also manufactured a fake Naomi. The two simulated children were playing hide and seek when they arrived, the Flotter character refusing to tell Bester where his offspring was hiding, calling him a meanie and saying that he would never tell him her whereabouts, of course, having been programmed not to by Mr. Kim. Finally, after much searching, Bester found her and held her tightly as she kicked and screamed in apparent fright, trying to break free of his vice-like grip. Bester, intent on calming his fake offspring, did not notice the contented and proud smile forming on Ensign Kim's face. The holographic doctor decided to join them, concerned for the child's safety, not knowing that the real Alice was not on the ship anymore. Bester was saying to her that she was not going to be harmed and asked the doctor for a mild tranquilizer so he could more easily deal with her. At first, the doctor refused, but seeing how tightly he held her, became concerned that she might harm herself in an effort to break free. As soon as he administered the sedative, Garibaldi activated Zathros' interdimensional time travel device and the two men from the other universe vanished. Scarlet elected to stay behind long enough to explain to the captain why she was masquerading as Lt. Torres for the second time, reappearing as herself in the holodeck.

As soon as Garibaldi and Bester materialized inside Gary Seven's transporter, the fake child vanished from Alfred's arms like a soap bubble. He knew then that he had been tricked. To their mutual astonishment and dismay, he and Pavel locked eyes for a few seconds. The young girl named Roberta that Bester had met earlier quickly blocked the Psi Cop's way and aimed a servo at him, at first gasping in horror at his unexpected appearance. Pavel screamed in terror, clutched at his chest, and passed out, apparently from a heart attack. Mr. Seven was too taken aback at first by Bester's and Garibaldi's appearances to act on his threat to shoot Bester on sight. He was also concerned about hitting Mr. Garibaldi, whom he knew was no friend of Bester's. Roberta was trembling slightly, glancing back at poor Captain Chekov, asking him anxiously if he was all right. There was no response.

"You beast!" She snarled. " You take one step towards Pavel and I will be vacuuming what's left of your worthless carcass off our new shag carpeting!"

As she spoke, Seven had withdrawn his own weapon. He knew that Pavel was in trouble and he had to get a doctor there right away. He was also a little amused at Roberta's statement, knowing that there was no setting on the servo to reduce a human being to dust. A pity.

"What are you doing here, Bester? Have you come to finish what you started?"

"Of course not!" Replied Bester indignantly. "I didn't expect to come here." He glanced at Garibaldi, realization dawning on him as to why they were here, instead of in their universe. "Nice try, Garibaldi, but you won't get rid of me this easily." He smiled at him evilly. "I didn't know you had it in you."

Roberta, still worried about Pavel, was instructed by Mr. Seven to go to the hidden wall hanging com link and call for a Starfleet Temporal doctor, also telling her that he had the two arrivals covered. She complied, sidling past Garibaldi and eyeing Bester with much loathing and fear. He was starting to pick up on it, his abilities starting to make a comeback. He gave her a smile that sent chills down her spine. Isis hissed at him and told Seven telepathically. He raised his servo, set it to kill, and told him that if he used his returning ability to harm any of them that he would kill him where he stood.

"I have no intention of harming you or anyone else, Mr. Seven." Bester said as benignly as possible.

"That's what you said the last time, Bester." Seven replied, noting the arrival of Dr. Kate Pulaski, who flew to her patient's side, giving him some sort of shot to stabilize his condition.


	13. Dinah's Solid Grounds For a Divorce

The Littlest Rogue-Chapter 13

Captain Janeway stared at her crew in horror for a few minutes, having never felt more appalled at anything in her life before witnessing the crew's apparent pleasure, with the exception of Mr. Tuvok's and the doctor's, at Bester's brutality towards little Alice. She and the doctor couldn't understand their smiles as Alfred Bester held the child in a vice-like grip with an evil smile of his own, as if to say, "Now I've got you!" She stared with dismay at the empty space where the evil Chekov double, his child and Garibaldi had been, and then realized that there were two Torreses in the room. As she watched in astonishment, the phony Torres morphed back into Scarlet O'Neil. The captain then turned back to the real Torres, Chakotay and Mr. Kim, thinking at first that they had all gone insane.

"Torres, why did you and Harry just stand there smiling while that man brutalized his little girl? That kind of conduct is reprehensible!"

"Agreed, Captain. It would be if that had actually been Alice." Torres replied pleasantly. Tuvok spoke up.

"We had to convince both you and Mr. Bester that the holographic representation of Alice was the actual child, Captain. I sensed that his telepathic abilities were making a comeback, which is why I did not inform you of the deception."

"I see." The captain said, realizing now that she had been witnessing Harry's and B'Elaana's pride at manufacturing a fake Alice in order to fool the evil Mr. Bester. "Where is the real Alice?"

"By now, she is with her mother, safe from her terrible father forever." O'Neil answered. "Mrs. Bester asked me to come back and convey her heartfelt thanks for taking such good care of little Alice and for making sure Mr. Bester didn't get his claws into her."

"But I gave her a shot to put her under and she reacted to it!" The holographic doctor interjected in puzzlement.

"I substituted your real hypo for a holographic one, Doctor." Kim said, still with a smirk.

"Swell." The doctor said with a twinge of irritation in his voice as the human crewmembers in the room smiled back at Kim with amusement.

Roberta raised her servo and aimed it at Bester, tears of anger at Bester and concern for poor Pavel streaming down her face. The doctor from the twenty-fourth century had announced that their friend was in deep shock and had suffered a coronary. He would have to return to the star base hospital in the future immediately. Mr. Seven told the doctor that she could take the wheelchair with her so she wouldn't have to carry Chekov as he set the controls, still eyeing Bester warily as Pulaski wheeled Pavel into the safe-like transporter. Seven informed the good doctor that they had set the voice-activated typewriter correctly this time, and asked her to keep them informed of Pavel's condition. She assured them that she would as she and their unfortunate Russian friend dematerialized in a blue haze. Seven spoke to his young lady friend gently.

"Roberta, lower your weapon. Isis tells me that their appearance here was not their idea."

Garibaldi had raised his hands in surrender, his expression on his face full of compassion for the young blonde girl.

"Please, miss, don't fire. It was not our intention to frighten Mr. Chekov. We didn't even know that he was here. As much as I hate to admit it, Bester is not at fault. Zathros must have learned what Mr. Seven had said about shooting Bester on sight if he should encounter him again."

Roberta wiped a tear and stared at them, still wary as Bester spoke.

"I am glad he didn't shoot me."

"I'm not." Roberta said, still keeping her servo trained on them.

"Roberta," Seven asked in concern, "please put your weapon down. I know you want to kill him for harming Pavel, but do you really want to lower yourself to his level?" He addressed the two arrivals warily as she reluctantly complied. "Both of you must return to your universe immediately. I have set the coordinates to bring you the rest of the way back."

"Thanks, Mr. Seven. Zathros didn't give me very much instruction on how to use this device." Garibaldi said, lowering his hands in apparent relief and then holding up the little gizmo he had been given. Roberta recalled that the Zathros he was referring to was the strange but very likeable alien she had seen on their com link a few days ago. Garibaldi was a little concerned that Bester might try and take advantage of her mercy, but the psi cop made no menacing moves. He just smiled at her as gently as he could. The smile turned her stomach, but she put on a brave front. Bester turned and addressed Mr. Seven.

"Mr. Seven, what about my wife and daughter?"

Gary had his own servo still trained on him, just in case he tried anything with Miss Lincoln.

"Oh, yes. They are safely on another planet in the future in this universe. They are staying here. Before she left with your child, Dinah asked me to tell you to consider this a divorce, and that she had known about your little girlfriend for a long time." Seven paused, now recalling that Scarlet was waiting to return from Voyager. Garibaldi spoke again.

"And, judging by the way you were brutalizing your fake offspring, that's probably a good thing. That's plenty of grounds for a divorce if you ask me." He said with a slight smile.

Shock and anger darkened the face of the evil psi cop.

"She can't do that! She is a member of the Psi Corps! She must return with me!"

"She can and she did, Bester. Get over it and count yourself fortunate that Miss Lincoln did not disintegrate you." Seven said, noticing the amused look on Garibaldi's face. He got his revenge at last.


	14. Young Alfred on the Enterprise

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 14

Young Alfred Bester had never been off his home planet Mars before, and he marveled at the five-mile long space station, orbiting an apparently dead and desolate world that the locals had dubbed Epsilon Three. His expressive dark eyes continued to stare in fascination as his Psi Corps shuttle docked with seemingly effortless ease. As he and his two other trainees disembarked and were escorted into the main receiving area, they were given their orders. Young Mr. Bester was to track down and capture the elusive and beautiful Psi Corps fugitive named Scarlet O'Neil. He had always thought of her as a myth, knowing that her name and her fame originated from a mostly forgotten comic strip and a book from an early twentieth century writer named Russell Stamm. However, he was assured that the young woman was very real in this twenty-third century. Alfred was chosen for this mission because he was blessed with boyish good looks, and he knew that his looks could melt the heart of any female fugitive rogue or blip. At this early age, young Mr. Bester was not as evil or cunning as he would be later in life. He was inexperienced and eager to please his superiors. Unfortunately, his superiors were his role models, who would shape what he was to become. Young Alfred had also heard the rumors and tales of strange occurrences that had plagued the first two Babylon stations, which had either vanished by some sort of space anomaly or had been destroyed. He hoped that this third Babylon station would not suffer the same fate; at least not until he had captured his quarry.

It was said that this Scarlet, besides being a telepathic fugitive, also possessed the ability to make herself invisible at will. Alfred knew that as such, she would be difficult if not impossible to locate. However, he lived for challenges like this and held her photo I.D. card tightly in his right hand, having taken it out of his wallet moments ago for a closer inspection. His superiors weren't kidding when they said she was beautiful. She had lovely dark brown hair, pretty ringlets framing her delicate face. She had gorgeous blue eyes and a flawless complexion, her mouth was curved in a perfect bow. Alfred found it difficult to take his eyes off of the picture. It was also rumored that the girl in the photo possessed an inner beauty as well, but young Alfred didn't much care about that. He was here to find her, capture her, and bring her back to the Psi Corps by force, if necessary. However, because he was instantly attracted to her likeness, he planned to woo her with his still ample charms.

As he stepped into the main receiving area the locals had dubbed the promenade, most of the young women stared briefly at his young face, instantly attracted to his physical attributes. However, most soon gave him a wide berth when they noticed his Psi Corps uniform and his characteristic gloved hands. He read in their thoughts that they had no desire to get involved with anyone from the Psi Corps, knowing that Psi cops, even those with boyish good looks in training, could be vicious killers. Alfred pitied them, never considering himself to be a murderer. He thought of himself as simply a hunter, tracking down rogue telepaths so they could be brought back to the Psi Corps for their benefit. It was true that they had occasionally killed non-telepaths, but that was only if any of the mundanes tried to kill any of them…or so he had been told.

As he was escorted to his temporary quarters on Babylon Three, Alfred was deep in thought, not noticing the strange glow in the right hand corner of his room. He was left alone to contemplate his next moves. How was he going to find the elusive and beautiful woman named Scarlet O'Neil? He had no idea where to start looking. He closed his eyes for a moment. It had been a long trip to the space station and he was a bit tired. Before starting his assignment, he decided to take a little nap.

Soon he became aware of unfamiliar voices just outside of his quarters and he sensed that there was something odd going on. Instantly alert, he opened his eyes and gasped as he realized that his surroundings had changed. Instead of the dark gray metal walls, he saw that they were now a soft blue. The contrast to where he had been moments before was shocking, however. He found that he was seated on an armless black chair, facing some sort of device mounted on a table. It had three screens, which were blank. He wondered at its purpose as he stood and looked around. There were other chairs in this room, but he was the only one in it. A little startled but not exactly frightened, he stood and stepped towards an orange pair of doors, which, to his surprise, swished open at his approach. He wonderingly stepped into a populated corridor, staring now at the people passing by. The women he saw were dressed in rather short-skirted red and blue uniforms, with a strange insignia on the tip of their asymmetrical black collars. The men he soon encountered were dressed similarly, except that their uniforms consisted of red, gold and blue tunics, black pants that flared at the bottom and each were wearing black boots. One of them regarded him curiously and approached him. Alfred noticed that he was wearing gold braid on the ends of his sleeves. His tunic was red, except for the top portion, which was black. He spoke in a distinctive Scottish brogue.

"You are out of uniform, Mister!" He observed sternly. "You must be that Chekov fellow I heard so much about. You are early. You weren't due to arrive on the Enterprise for another week." He paused for a moment, wondering why the young man was dressed so strangely and why he had gloves on, and Alfred read in his thoughts that he was the chief engineer and that his name was Montgomery Scott. "I wonder why the captain did not inform me of your presence. Go to your quarters and get into uniform. I will tell the captain that you are here, in case he doesn't know already. When you get into your uniform, report to sickbay for a standard medical exam, then come back here to the engineering section."

Not knowing what else to say, but sensing that this Scotsman meant business, he answered with a "Yes, sir!". The older man left him standing there. Apparently, Alfred was being mistaken for someone named Chekov. Judging from the name, Alfred considered that he was a Russian. All right, so he was a Russian. Now what? Where was his quarters and sickbay? He began to panic, but soon found that an attractive blonde lady named Chapel was heading for this place called sickbay.

"Excuse me, ma'am. I'm new on this ship and my name is Chekov. Where are my quarters? Mr. Scott told me to report to them and change into my uniform and then report to sickbay for a physical."

The blonde woman smiled, also obviously attracted to his good looks. However, Bester read in her mind that she was in love with an alien first officer called a Vulcan, who did not reciprocate her affections. He also found that the crew of this ship called the Enterprise had just discovered an ancient sleeper ship named the Botany Bay and had rescued one of its occupants from certain death. She was heading there to assist the chief medical officer in the care of their new patient.

"I see. You can accompany me now if you like. I will show you to your quarters after your standard Starfleet physical. We didn't expect to see you here so early, Mr. Chekov. I thought you were due to arrive a week from now." She paused and looked into his hazel eyes, and also wondered why he was dressed so strangely. "No matter. Follow me."


	15. Spock Melds With Pavel

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 15

Dr. Pulaski was concerned for her returning famous patient's need for security. She had learned of a possible threat to him via a secure and scrambled subspace com link with Commodore Joanna McCoy; the inhabitants of a planet called Gamma Trianguli Six. Although a peace treaty with the planet's officials had recently been signed, and their god machine Vaal had been repaired and the ecosystem restored, there were still some extremist groups on the planet who, if they found out that he was here, would surely try and harm or kill him if they could. Being also that the head of Starfleet Command was part Gamma Triangulan, this newly revealed threat was very credible. Dr. Pulaski hated to lie to him about Pavel, telling him that Mr. Seven was the new patient instead, but she felt that her patient's safety was more important. His presence here must be kept as quiet as possible. The inhabitants of this planet had been at war with the Federation for many years, and had telepathically murdered Dr. Leonard McCoy, Joanna's father, for his part in destroying their god machine Vaal, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of their planet's ecosystem. Also, three quarters of the population had been wiped out from severe weather changes and diseases. Pavel Chekov had also been a part of the original landing party, and, under orders from Kirk, kept the people from sustaining Vaal's energy reserves by dropping indigenous explosive rocks into its maw. Her unfortunate returning patient still lay in a coma, two days after suffering a nearly fatal heart attack at the sight of his slimy double from a parallel universe. She had managed to repair the coronary damage, but he was still weak and in shock from his encounters with Mr. Bester. She had also been true to her word concerning Mr. Seven and Miss Lincoln, informing them that Pavel had survived his most recent brush with death, but he was not out of the woods yet. His condition had recently been upgraded from critical to serious. She had ordered that someone should be at his bedside at all times when she wasn't there. Her head nurse was there now as Pulaski went on a secure subspace channel to contact her former captain on the Enterprise-D in order to procure some needed security personnel. She, of course, knew that Worf would not do, knowing that the twenty-third century patient might suffer a relapse if he should awaken and see him. Picard readily agreed, and had assigned two security officers to protect Mr. Chekov; an Andorian female telepath named Tola and a human Englishman named Vickers.

Captain Jean Luc Picard had not been expecting to receive a call on a secure and scrambled channel from his former chief medical officer. Tola and Vickers stood at attention as Picard ended his conversation with Pulaski, a steaming cup of Earl Grey beside his computer screen on his desk. He stood and straightened his uniform, his facial expression serious. Tola, of course, already knew what their assignment was going to be, but, being a security officer, knew that she should keep her mouth shut. Vickers glanced at her, wondering what was on the captain's mind. He spoke to Vickers first.

"Mr. Vickers, you and Lt. Tola will be going to Star Base 515 to protect the life of a very famous patient. I am not at liberty to tell you who he is, but his life will be in your hands. You will find out who this person is when you get there, Mr. Vickers. You two are under orders not to divulge this man's identity or his presence on the star base to anyone. Dr. Pulaski will probably give you further orders once you get there. For the duration of this man's stay at the base hospital, you two are under the doctor's command. Follow her orders as you would follow mine. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear, sir." Vickers answered stiffly, eyeing Tola curiously as she nodded, knowing that her telepathic ability had already revealed to her who they were going to be guarding.

"Very well. You may leave immediately. Dismissed."

As they left the room, Picard settled down with a worried expression, hoping that his new security officers could be trusted with this secret. He went back to his desk and took a sip of his cooling Earl Grey, went to his couch and opened a good book, trying to get his mind off of the new perceived danger to poor Mr. Chekov.

Pavel Chekov had just graduated from Starfleet Academy and had just been assigned to the Federation's most advanced and beautiful new starship named the Enterprise. He assumed when he was called into the dean's office that he was there to get his walking papers and other pertinent information about his new position. The dean, a balding man with thick old-fashioned eyeglasses, was talking with an intelligent-looking slightly older man who introduced himself as Gary Seven. The dean told him to sit down and then informed him that Mr. Seven was looking for bright and promising cadets for his new affiliation with the Starfleet Temporal division. Chekov was the ideal candidate for this other clandestine position, but Mr. Seven did not explain why. It was only later when he learned that Mr. Seven already knew about him. Seven, knowing the future, knew that in a couple of years, he would be meeting the bright young man again, after having his powerful alien transporter beam accidentally intercepted by the Enterprise's systems while in the year 1968. For the next two years on the starship after accepting his other job as an agent for Seven, Pavel was under orders not to let anyone on the Enterprise in on it, not even his captain. To reveal his association with Seven too early might disrupt the time line. Needless to say, Pavel found it very difficult to keep his other job a secret. He especially had difficulty keeping his affiliation with Seven a secret from the half Vulcan science officer, whom he knew was growing suspicious.

An elderly Vulcan suddenly appeared next to the dean's desk. The dean didn't seem to notice him and looked at Pavel curiously. Before Pavel could say anything, the room and everyone in it but him and the Vulcan faded away. The Vulcan, who looked strangely familiar, spoke to him gently.

"This is a dream, Mr. Chekov. It is time for you to awaken."

"_Wha…?" _Pavel suddenly found he was unable to speak. He soon became conscious of an oxygen mask on his face and a sore throat, and felt the Vulcan's cool fingers on his temples. Spock's face was showing more compassion than Chekov had ever thought possible for him.

"Welcome back, Pavel."

Chekov blinked and his eyes focused on the former first officer. It was the first time Spock had ever called him by his first name and he told him so telepathically, the realization dawning on him that he was back in the star base hospital. He also soon became aware of a security guard standing on the other side of the bed, who smiled at him gently. Spock spoke again.

"I must say, Captain, that this time your fear did not serve you as well as it did in the past."

It took a few moments for the Russian to figure out what he meant, and then he blushed as the image of the prematurely aged corpse that had startled him so long ago came into his mind.

"_That was over forty years ago, Mr. Spock. Am I never going to live that one down? Besides, I thought Bester was going to kill me."_

"Then, unlike that other time, your reaction was understandable." Spock answered aloud. "However, you have nothing to fear here. You even have two security guards to protect you from any possible harm. One of them is an Andorian female, who would not let me enter your room without authorization from Dr. Pulaski, even though she recognized me almost immediately."

Chekov frowned in puzzlement.

"_Why all the security?"_

"It is because someone on planet Gamma Trianguli Six may try to harm you. We couldn't take any chances."

"_Why are you here?…Not that I am not glad to see you."_ The name of the planet sounded vaguely familiar to Pavel, but he was too groggy for it to fully register.

"I have a confession to make, Pavel. All these years I thought you were holding back on your telepathy. I treated you badly, mistaking you for your telepathic double, who was on the Enterprise a week before you were scheduled to arrive. For that, I apologize."

"_All these years, I just thought you were being a typical Vulcan."_ Pavel said with a mystified smile.


	16. Bester and Kahn

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 16

Author's note: I took some of the lines that Kahn and McCoy said word for word from the episode "Space Seed" to give the story some authenticity. I also know that nurse Chapel wasn't in the episode, but she was in the first season. Enjoy!

Christine Chapel led the strangely dressed but handsome dark-haired young ensign into sickbay's waiting room, explaining to Dr. McCoy after introducing him to the young man that he was there for his routine physical. Bester knew before the doctor said anything that he was rather busy at the moment. The head nurse left in a shuttle craft for a scheduled conference about the psychological effects of long space voyages at a place called Star Base Twelve, but not before instructing one of her assistant nurses to show the man she thought was Mr. Chekov to his quarters after he saw the doctor. Bester had decided that it was best to play the role he had been given and took off his gloves. He set them on a table beside what appeared to be a lap top computer, probably for reading while new patients waited to see the good doctor. He smiled, thinking that this was much better than reading old paper magazines. He heard another attractive nurse confirming this assumption, telling him to feel free to use it. She asked him if he knew how to access the library computer. He wasn't sure, so she showed him how. He had decided to look up the service record of the real Mr. Chekov, in order to find out more about him. He was inwardly amazed that he so closely resembled him. In another reality, they could have been identical twins, separated at birth. Being that he so closely resembled his counterpart, nobody thought anything about it, thinking that he was just accessing his own file for practice. As he was learning more about his identical counterpart, whom he learned was not due to arrive for another week, he grew distracted by the thoughts of the patient and the doctor on the other side of the wall. The new patient, he had learned, was apparently rescued from an ancient sleeper ship named the Botany Bay. The doctor was amazed by the man's recuperative abilities, having been in suspended animation for two centuries. Alfred also learned that there were seventy-two others still aboard the ancient craft, waiting to be revived. Bester soon realized that their new casualty was a raving lunatic, bent on conquest; ruthless and vicious in his dealings with other people. He read in the man's thoughts that he had already awakened, and had taken an old dull scalpel from a wall display, feigning unconsciousness to gain some sort of advantage. Bester's pulse quickened, amazed at the unmitigated gall of this man from the past as he peeked inside the other room.

To his astonishment, he saw that the newcomer had one hand on the doctor's throat and held the pilfered knife with the other.

"Well, either choke me or cut my throat! Make up your mind." The doctor said courageously, startled.

"English…I thought I had dreamed hearing it. Where am I?"

"You're—"

The stranger tightened his grip.

"Answer my question!"

"You're in bed, holding a knife at your doctor's throat!"

"Answer me!"

"It would be most effective if you cut the carotid artery, just below the left ear."

The muscular stranger loosened his grip, realizing that this man just saved his life.

"I like a brave man."

The doctor named McCoy took the knife back and regarded him warily.

"I was just trying to avoid an argument." McCoy said, relief in his voice. "You are on board the united space ship Enterprise. Your vessel is in tow."

"Where is your captain? I have many questions." The muscular stranger announced, settling down on the diagnostic bed.

Free from his grasp now, McCoy moved to an intercom, giving the patient another wary glance, shooing Bester away from the door as he called the captain. Bester read in the doctor's thoughts that he was too freaked out by the muscular patient in the other room to give him a physical at this time. In a way, Bester was a little relieved himself. He did not know if his identical counterpart was telepathic, but he guessed that he probably wasn't. He hadn't spent much time with the file on him before getting distracted. The young psi cop pretending to be a Starfleet ensign soon learned that the stranger was named Kahn Noonian Singh and was planning to find out all he could about their amazing technology by studying technical manuals and then he was going to attempt a takeover. He thought it only fair that he inform the captain, who seemed to be clueless about this man's intentions. Of course, he knew that the captain named James T Kirk was not telepathic. As he exited the sickbay, he almost collided with a lovely auburn-haired female named Marla. He read in her fleeting thoughts that she was quite smitten with this individual and had a small part in his rescue. She was there in an official capacity, however; being the ship's historian. For the first time since his arrival on this ship, Alfred wondered where his quarry was. Was the beautiful Psi Corps fugitive from his reality on board? He would have to find out later as he asked to speak with the captain in private after Kirk was finished conversing with Kahn.

Back in the future, Pavel Chekov was recovering quite nicely on the star base, but the doctor was not ready to release him yet. He was back in the old fashioned wheelchair, but she thought he was still too weak to return to his job as an MIB agent for Mr. Seven. Pavel also had a strong hunch that he had not seen the last of his nemesis. Spock, satisfied that Pavel was going to recover, soon left for Vulcan, wishing him well. Pavel decided on a plan to make the villain from the other universe think he was dead, in hopes that the psi cop would return to the other universe and not come back. He did not have any desire to encounter Bester again, not wishing to get killed for real. He hated to do this to Roberta and Seven, but he felt that he had few options. Since he outranked Dr. Pulaski, he ordered her to contact Seven and inform him of his "demise", saying that he had been killed by a Vaalian who somehow got past security and found out that he was there. Tola and Vickers admired Mr. Chekov's cunning, but were also dubious of the idea. They were ordered not to tell anyone of the ruse, for Pavel knew that Picard would surely contact Starfleet Command, and would probably believe the story of his "death". That would create problems for Pavel, since he was blaming the Vaalians for something they did not do. Pulaski had her doubts that his plan would work as well, but kept them to herself. She also did not contact the half Vaalian head of Starfleet Command. To do so would create more problems, for there would be too many questions asked. Also, Bester would probably find out about the ruse. Pavel himself had chosen the planet where Dinah and little Alice were staying, and it was the only place in the universe where he was still feared and hated by some for his part in the destruction of their god machine. And since Bester looked just like him, there was a good chance that the planet's inhabitants would mistake him for Pavel. Also, being that Mrs. Bester and her little girl were human, he had to tell another little white lie, calling them Betazoids. He felt he had to do that, because, in general, humans were not welcome on this planet, even though they had repaired the machine named Vaal and had formally apologized to the planet's inhabitants. The ones who were killed by disease and severe weather changes were still dead. Nothing could change that. He had made friends with one of the natives long ago, however; a man he became acquainted with when he was first on the planet as a young ensign. His name was Makora. Little Alice and her mother were staying with him and his wife Sayana until they were settled in their new home.


	17. Kirk Puts Bester in the Brig

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 17

Captain James T. Kirk was at his desk in his quarters, having just conversed with a brash, inexperienced, strangely-dressed young ensign who had claimed that Mr. Kahn was up to no good. The young man seemed very serious about this claim, but so far Kirk had sensed no apparent danger from the man they had rescued from the sleeper ship. The young man had pleaded with him to not let Mr. Kahn view technical manuals in sickbay during his convalescence. Kirk had told him that he appreciated his concern, but he felt he had things well under control when it came to their new guest, and that it was only fair to let him catch up after spending over two hundred years in hibernation. He also ordered him to report to his quarters and change into his uniform. The young Russian, who did not seem to possess even a hint of an accent, then had the guts to call him a moron. Kirk sat in silence, contemplating what he just did. It was the first time that Kirk had ever thrown someone in the brig for any reason, even though he gave his consent for the ensign to speak freely. Calling his new captain names wasn't something that any new Starfleet officer should do; even inexperienced ones. The young man's attitude was clearly one of insubordination. A little time in the brig might bring him to his senses. Now, after finding out from the ship's computers Kahn's full name, Kirk was beginning to wonder if maybe the ensign was right. So far, however, after putting a security guard at Mr. Kahn's quarters, the revived man seemed to be behaving himself. His door buzzer sounded and Kirk called out, "Come in."

Spock entered the room.

"Am I disturbing you, sir?"

"No, Mr. Spock. I was just beginning to wonder if maybe young Chekov was right." He paused and sighed. "It's just that I have never been called a moron by a junior officer before."

"For everything there is a first time, Captain."

Kirk glared at his first officer for a moment. He recalled his academy days when an upperclassman named Finnegan used to call him worse names, but to hear it from one of his crew was just too much. The Vulcan straightened and remained stoic, not a trace of a smile on his face. The statement was logical, but under different circumstances could have been construed as a joke. Kirk was not amused as he and his Vulcan first officer went back to the bridge.

Young Alfred was not accustomed to being cooped up in a brig cell. He had read in the captain's thoughts that Kirk felt insulted at being called a moron, but he couldn't help it. Kirk did not seem to have a clue as to the danger that this Kahn guy represented. The captain had let Bester go to his quarters and get changed into one of their uniforms. It was the same color as the captain's, but it did not have any gold braid on the ends of the sleeves. Alfred liked his own uniform better. He had a real sense of foreboding for the crew of this starship, but he could not stop what was about to happen. He sighed with resignation as he sensed that the madman they had rescued from the sleeper ship had just killed the guard outside of his quarters after forcing his locked door open, and had gone to cut off the life support and exit routes to and from the bridge. Kahn then beamed himself, with the help of the pretty auburn-haired lieutenant named Marla, whom Bester knew had fallen hopelessly in love with Khan, over to the Botany Bay, reviving his surviving followers. He then seized control of the ship, nearly killing the captain and the bridge crew. About an hour later, Bester sensed that Spock had released anesthesia gas on all the decks of the Enterprise. He lost consciousness from the effects of the gas, and the next thing he knew, he was back on Babylon Three with a splitting headache, his memory of being on the starship Enterprise quickly fading as he looked down with puzzlement at the strange clothes he had on, having no idea where they came from or what had just happened to him.

Curiously, Spock found himself to be the only person who remembered that there was a young man in the brig. The captain and the rest of the crew seemed to have lost their memories as well. He had decided to take matters into his own hands and called security.

"Security, this is Spock. Release Chekov and confine him to his quarters."

"Release who, sir?"

"Young Mr. Chekov. He is the newest addition to the Enterprise crew." Spock responded, puzzled.

"There is no one in the brig, sir."

Spock found out that they had been guarding an empty cell. After that, he was suspicious of the real Mr. Chekov the moment he actually came aboard the ship.

Meanwhile, about a week after Chekov's heart attack, in Gary Seven's apartment in the twentieth century, Roberta, just beginning her day, dressed in a very becoming dark blue and white nautical-style mini-dress, had just picked up a teletype message on the voice-activated typewriter. Her expectation was that Pavel was contacting them, telling them that he would soon be released from the Federation star base hospital, so when she read that he had been killed by, to her, unknown assailants, she screamed in horror, her hands shaking as she stared at the paper in dismay. She sank into the remaining orange chair as Seven flew to her side, taking the paper from her hands as she started to weep uncontrollably, her trembling hands covering her face as she sobbed.

Seven had his doubts that the news of Pavel's death was true, knowing that his most experienced agent had faked his death on many occasions, and that Captain Picard of the Enterprise-D had the best security officers in the fleet. The timing of this was also suspect. They had just learned of the Vaalian threat to Captain Chekov, but also knew that there had been no leaks about his presence on the star base. There was no way that the Vaalians could have gotten wind of his presence on the base. Now, the paper he took from poor Roberta's trembling hands had said that he was killed by the very same people who had just posed a possible threat to him. Gary Seven knew that Pavel was friends with one of the original contactees. Something just didn't add up. As Roberta continued to sob, Isis, in cat form, leaped onto her lap in an effort to comfort her without much success.

After a few minutes, Roberta looked into his eyes, tears still streaming from hers.

"Why, Gary? Why? Who are these horrible people? Why would they want to kill Pavel?"

"Roberta…there are many things you do not know. Please do not judge an entire race by the actions of a few. Most of them are good kind people, who bear no ill will towards humans, but you must understand that the Enterprise crew made a serious mistake on that planet that caused the deaths of three quarters of their population. Kirk ordered Pavel to keep the people in their huts while their god machine,which regulated the planet's weather patterns and their lives was destroyed. When it was, the planet's ecosystem was severely affected. However…I don't believe that he was killed." He saw that she was still crying, but trying without much success to keep her emotions under control. Seven could tell that she dearly loved Pavel. "I will tell you what, hon. You have my permission to go to the star base yourself to see if this news is true."

"How could it not be true? The news came from that doctor in the twenty-fourth century!"

Gary Seven knew that doctors in the nineteen sixties were trusted implicitly. He still had a hunch that Pavel had ordered the good doctor to lie for some reason, and he told her so. After a few more minutes of counseling the grieving young woman, she finally decided to investigate the claim of Pavel's demise for herself. She stepped into the safe-like transporter, still with a sad and shocked look on her face. Gary Seven felt very sorry for her and hoped that he was right as he began to set the coordinates for the twenty-fourth century star base.


	18. Bester Takes Roberta Hostage

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 18

Garibaldi had not yet given back to Zathros his interdimensional device and Bester knew it. The evil psi cop had not yet given up on the idea of getting his family back and was plotting revenge for Garibaldi's part in their escape from his clutches. Late at night while the former security guard was asleep, Bester slithered into his quarters and stole the device. Unlike Garibaldi, Bester was able to pick Zathros' brain for the instructions on how to use it. Unfortunately for Zathros, he had decided to retrieve the device at the same time as Bester. A fierce fight ensued and Zathros was killed. Garibaldi was injured in the melee and his memory was erased with Bester's telepathy. The evil psi cop also had taken a fully charged PPG gun with him as he vanished.

He was delighted to see that he had a ready-made hostage. He was standing right behind a weeping Roberta Lincoln in Gary Seven's transporter. He pocketed the interdimensional device and grabbed her roughly. She screamed in horror and struggled to break free as Seven stared at him in astonishment. Bester had one hand around her slender throat and held his gun at the small of her back with the other.

"Stop your struggling, little girl, or I will choke you to death!" Bester hissed into her ear.

Seven thought that Roberta was going to faint with fright again, but she stayed conscious this time. She complied with Bester's order to stop struggling and continued to cry, trembling, terrified at what he might do. She felt the cold steel of the madman's gun against her back. It hurt, as did his hand at her throat.

"What do you want, Bester?" Seven asked with outward calm.

"I think you know, Seven. Transport me to where my family is hiding. If you do not, I will kill Miss Lincoln." He tightened his grip around her throat and she gasped, having trouble breathing from the constriction. Terrified, she whimpered. "I have a gun aimed at your little friend's back, Mr. Seven. Do as I say or she dies!" Bester snarled. He then picked up on Roberta's thoughts and smiled evilly. "My counterpart is dead, I see."

"Probably, no thanks to you, you creep." Seven said contemptuously. "Let Miss Lincoln go and I will transport you to the planet. There is no need for violence. Just give me time to reset the coordinates."

"No deal, Seven. Your little assistant is going with me as a hostage, in case you try to double-cross me and transport me to the wrong place."

"Gary…!" Roberta gasped painfully.

"You can read my mind, Bester. You know I really have to reset the coordinates. Roberta was on her way to attend Pavel's funeral at the star base." He looked with concern at Roberta, who looked like she was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. Bester, knowing this, loosened his grip a little so his hostage could breathe.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Seven. She is dressed rather strangely for a funeral."

"Pavel's death happened rather suddenly, Bester. One of the residents of that planet we sent Dinah and Alice to killed him. If we are lucky, they will do the same to you."

"I think your luck has run out, Seven. Set the damned coordinates and transport me there or young Roberta will die of asphyxiation right here." He paused for a moment, jabbing the barrel of the gun deeper into her back. She whimpered again, this time with pain. " Don't try and follow us, either."

Seven had no choice but to comply. He looked pityingly at Roberta, who was still gasping for air and weeping softly in absolute terror. "Roberta, my dear, this will be your first trip to a populated alien planet. Please stay alive."

The poor girl nodded and closed her eyes as tears fell. She and Bester were enveloped with the blue transporter mist.

Scarlet O'Neil had just come back from the starship Voyager, just in time to see Roberta and Bester dematerialize in Seven's safe-like transporter. She asked what had happened and Seven told her. She offered to go to the planet herself and rescue poor Roberta, but Seven thought that it was too dangerous. He decided to go there himself, not wanting to put his newest agent's life in jeopardy. Suddenly, there was the sound of the transporter beam again. Both Seven and Miss O'Neil raised their weapons as the new arrival materialized. It was Pavel Chekov, dressed in his maroon uniform, fully recovered from his brush with death. Relieved, they both lowered their servos. He smiled gently at them.

Mr. Seven was very happy that his most experienced agent was alive and well.

"I am glad that you did not shoot me, sir." He then noticed their worried expressions. "What has happened?"

"Bester reappeared and took Miss Lincoln hostage. She's in trouble, Pavel. He threatened to kill her if I did not beam him to GT6. He might kill her anyway."

"Not on my watch!" Pavel replied bravely. "Transport me to the planet and I will dispose of him myself."

"Pavel, you just got out of the hospital!" Scarlet said in concern. "You will be killed if you go there!"

"Thanks for your concern, Miss O'Neil, but I can take care of myself. I know that planet well and can keep Bester from finding his family. Try not to worry."

"You are a very brave man, Pavel. Are you sure you want to do this?" Seven asked worriedly.

"Absolutely. He has threatened to harm Miss Lincoln. I care very much for the young lady. I must do this, even if it costs me my life. At least I will have the satisfaction of knowing that Roberta is safe. Please let me do this, Gary."

"Very well, agent 152. Good luck."

Pavel nodded and brandished a number two phaser that he had holstered on a gun belt around his waist. Apparently, he had been anticipating something like this. He set the weapon for heavy stun force, and smiled.

"Energize."

Dinah Bester had just put Alice down for her afternoon nap. As the child closed her eyes, she screamed in horror, seeing her evil father materialize with Roberta in her mind, and then whispering something in her ear, clobbering her with the butt of a pistol. Her mother came running to her side, asking her what was wrong. The child had had several nightmares about her father, but this was different. Alice was sobbing uncontrollably. Dinah held her child close and asked her what was wrong.

"He found us, Mommy! He hurt Miss Lincoln real bad! She's bleeding, Mommy! I'm scared!"


	19. Bester Harms Roberta

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 19

Bester and his terrified young hostage soon materialized on the alien world. They were standing in a clearing on the outskirts of a primitive village, the landscape lush with exotic flowers and tropical greenery. To Bester's amusement, the young girl still had her eyes closed. He ordered her to open them, but he knew that she was still too frightened to comply. She felt warm breezes caress her drawn tear-streaked face and she soon caught the scent of flowers, which seemed to have a mild calming effect like the poison poppies in "The Wizard of Oz". She wished she could click her heels three times and escape from this nightmare. Her captor had loosened his grip on her throat, but had moved the barrel of his gun from the base of her spine to the back of her head. He ordered her to open her eyes again, and this time she complied, feeling the barrel of the PPG gun burrowing into her flesh. She was afraid that he might shoot her if she didn't do as he said. He had produced a set of handcuffs from a utility belt around his waist and had used them on her hands. She whimpered helplessly as he prodded her forward. The sun was bright and hot above their heads and she squinted, not yet accustomed to the increased light. When her eyes finally adjusted to their surroundings, she saw that they were near a village; the dwellings of the natives were thatched huts. Soon, they saw an alien approach, emerging from one of the huts, carrying a heavy two-pronged wooden stick. Roberta gasped, fearing that he was going to clobber them both. His skin was tan; almost red from exposure to their sun. His hair and eyebrows were pure white. His chest and torso were bare and he was wearing a loin cloth over his private parts. Sandals covered his feet. He got a good look at Bester, his eyes widening with surprise, anger and fear. Bester read in the native's mind that he thought he was Chekov. Bester wondered at this for a moment as the native raised his club, about to charge. Roberta screamed as she felt a sharp pain from the butt of Bester's gun at the base of her skull, and dropped to the ground, unconscious. Bester looked down at her for a moment, realizing that he had hit her too hard. She was lying in a pool of blood. He had only meant to knock her out, for he knew that she would no longer be needed in his quest to find his family. He smiled impishly as he heard his child scream, knowing now that he had come to the right place. He aimed his gun at the native and fired, killing him.

Pavel materialized right behind Bester, just in time to see him whack poor Roberta in the back of the head and gun down the unfortunate Vaalian. The Starfleet captain quickly aimed at Bester's back, and fired. It was a good clean shot and his double dropped his weapon, fell backwards and…vanished. Puzzled for a moment or two, Pavel looked at his weapon settings and then back at the area where the evil psi cop had disappeared. He had had his weapon set on stun, not disintegrate. Puzzled at this turn of events but shrugging it off for now, he knelt beside poor Roberta, tears of compassion and concern filling his eyes as he checked for a pulse. She did not deserve this. His friend Makora came out of his own hut, knelt beside his fallen neighbor, and closed his lifeless eyes. He looked over at Pavel, who was sitting on the ground, a shocked look on his face, now cradling Roberta's limp form in his arms. He did not take notice of the blood stains forming on his sleeves. Wordlessly, Makora helped him get the stricken human girl into his house, he and his wife doing their best to tend to her life-threatening injury. They had set her on her side because they could not remove the hand cuffs. Makora called for a healer, their equivalent to a doctor, on their household communications device, hoping that the healer could do more for the unfortunate girl.

They had managed to stop the bleeding as the Vaalian doctor arrived. He glared at Pavel for a few minutes, knowing that he was once part of Kirk's landing party. Little Alice looked up at her mother and asked her why the alien doctor hated them. It was then that Makora realized that his friend Pavel had lied to him to protect his guests, knowing now that they were human, not Betazoids. Makora decided to forgive Pavel's lie, knowing how some on his planet still felt about humans. The doctor announced that he could not treat Roberta.

"Why not?" Chekov asked a little upset at the doctor's candor, and soon knowing why with his newfound telepathy. "Look, I know she is human, but she is innocent! She knows nothing of your world or what happened here. She is from the twentieth century! She did not ask to come here, but was forced to against her will and nearly killed by my evil double. Please, I'm begging of you, put aside your hatred and help her!"

"I have read their holy book, Atuka. The humans are not all evil." Makora told the doctor urgently. "There was a wise man in it named Jesus, who said to love your enemies and do good to those who hurt you. We have made peace with these people. Please have a heart and help this one!"

The alien doctor, whom Chekov learned was the son of Akuta, the former leader of the feeders of Vaal, considered Makora's words carefully and looked astonished at the fact that one of their worst enemies had an evil double. He had always been told that Kirk's crew was composed of the most evil people in the galaxy. He looked down at the girl, and began to feel compassion for her. For Makora's sake, he decided to do what he could, but told them that he did not know much about human physiology. Poor Roberta's breathing was becoming shallow and she was going into shock. She had lost a lot of blood and was very pale. The doctor felt for a pulse. He looked at Makora with a somber expression.

"I am sorry, Makora. I can do nothing else for this young one. She is dead." With that, he pulled a nearby blanket over her still form. Pavel was no doctor, but he knew that there was something wrong with the way the healer had checked for her pulse. Throughout his many years getting to know these people, he knew that their internal arrangements differed greatly from humans. She couldn't be dead, for he also recalled Mr. Seven saying that he had seen an older version of Roberta on his com link. Suddenly, a being appeared by Roberta's bedside in a flash of light. With a wave of his hand, the hand cuffs disappeared from Roberta's wrists just like Bester.

"She isn't dead, you knucklehead! She is only sleeping!" He knelt beside the girl, removing the blanket with telekinesis. "A Q tip for a Q-tip, dummy! Check for a pulse on the other side of her neck!" With another wave of his hand, the new arrival healed her injury, at the same time, cleaning up the blood from Pavel's sleeves, noticing the humans' astonished expressions. He gave Chekov a smug smile. "Bester is back to where he belongs, Pavel. He will remember nothing."


	20. The Fun Begins

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 20

Author's note: I know that in the B5 canon, Bester's lover Carolyn Sanderson was killed during the telepath war. Many thanks to Nairda for giving me the link on this character. However, in this story, she has a much happier destiny.

Alfred Bester felt numb and tingly all over as he came to his senses on space station Babylon Five in the corridor near the zokolo. He had absolutely no idea what had happened to him or where he had been. With uncertainty he got to his feet, suddenly realizing that someone or something had stripped him down to his underwear, revealing to his chagrin his preference for boxers over briefs. Even worse, they weren't his style. They had a black background and a wild print of skulls and crossbones all over them. Passersby in the corridor either snickered at his misfortune or glared at him with loathing, quickly averting their eyes as they met his and then went on their way. He read only hatred and contempt in their minds. He frowned in puzzlement. He was used to being hated and feared, but not like this. They all seemed to have one shared telepathic vision, even the mundanes: that he had brutally murdered some pretty little innocent blonde girl and a white-haired alien. He had no idea who they were, nor could he recall ever seeing them before in his life. As he stood, he found that he had been viciously kicked in the sides several times while he was unconscious. He winced with pain, deciding to first retrieve his dignity by going back to his quarters and getting back into his uniform. After he did that, he would go to the med lab to see if he was seriously injured. He was certain that he had at least one cracked rib from the abuse he had taken from his unknown assailants as he was lying on his back, unconscious in the corridor. As he made it back to his quarters, he remembered his girlfriend Carolyn, who at this moment was being freed from the cybernetic implants that were placed in her skull by aliens working for the Shadows. Unfortunately, he learned telepathically that she had lost their unborn child, due to her extended stay in a cryonic chamber. Even though he was a little disappointed, he was still too dizzy and in pain from being kicked to mourn. He thought that Dr. Franklin was a genius for being able to free her from the implants, not recalling that he had given the doctor the information on how to remove them himself upon his return from the starship Voyager. He paused and held onto the jamb to the door to his quarters, suddenly feeling a wave of dizziness. He stumbled into them, sitting heavily on an overstuffed brown leather chair. He closed his eyes for a moment, and the telepathic vision was still there. An innocent-looking young blonde girl in a nautical-style short-skirted dress, stained with her blood on the collar from a ghastly head injury, apparently caused by the blunt force of a PPG pistol butt to the back of her skull; and some alien guy with an abundant crop of white hair on his head, a large open bloody wound on his bare chest visible as he lay dying on the ground of some tropical alien planet Bester had never seen before. Shaking his head with dismay, Bester slowly and painfully made it into his bedroom and changed into his uniform. He found that he was not able to block the persistent vision of the girl and the alien. Usually, he was able to block anyone's telepathic transmissions, but this time he was at a loss to explain why he couldn't. They were giving him a headache, so he popped an over-the-counter pain pill into his mouth and took a swig of water to wash it down. To top off his discomfort, a part of the pill dissolved right away on his tongue, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Grimacing with disgust, he made his way to the main med lab. Two women who looked vaguely familiar observed him as he stepped into the doctor's office. One of them, a beautiful auburn-haired telepath named Scarlet smiled cryptically as Alfred read in her thoughts: _"Soon the fun begins, Isis!" _Her raven-haired companion nodded with agreement and smiled as well, as Bester, a little puzzled by their behavior, and not sure if they were talking about him, having no real memory of either of them, turned from them and approached Dr. Franklin. The good doctor had just helped Bester's girl friend to her feet. She still bore the tell-tale signs of the removed cybernetic implants, two round red marks on each temple visible. The doctor said that they would diminish with time. She glared at Alfred for a moment with disdain. Apparently, she had picked up on the strange telepathic vision of the girl and the alien as well, and knew that he had been the one who had perpetrated the crimes. For this reason, he soon found out that she never wanted to see him again as the doctor tended to his broken ribs.

Captain Chekov perused the new arrival to Roberta's bedside, wondering out loud how the alien knew his name. He, of course, had heard of the Q from his long association with Mr. Seven, but he never thought that he would encounter one. To Pavel's astonishment, the Q being told him that he had been observing Mr. Seven and his agents for quite some time and that the Q Continuum had appointed him to be Roberta's guardian angel. For many centuries, the Q had been called angels by humans. This particular Q loved Roberta, even though the captain found it a little odd that an immortal and powerful being such as this would be interested in a young mortal girl from twentieth century Earth. This Q was the one who had appeared to Roberta in her telepathic dream about Jack the Ripper and had stopped the entity from harming her. Pavel looked down with concern at Miss Lincoln, realizing that she still had not regained consciousness. The Q explained that he was letting her rest from her ordeal, knowing that she had had quite a day; believing that Pavel had died, becoming a hostage and forcibly transported to Gamma Trianguli Six and almost killed. Pavel soon realized that he might be mistaken for Bester if the young lady should awaken and see him standing over her. She might also be a little frightened of Makora or the Vaalian doctor, whom Pavel knew was beginning to feel useless. He then thought of Makora's neighbor: the Vaalian who had been shot and killed by his double, whose name he learned was Melzar, and asked the Q if he could restore the man to life. With a smile and a wave of his hand, the Q did just that. With another wave of his hand, he produced a beautiful necklace made of Spican flame gems for Roberta, placing it around her neck in a small flash of light. The stones that comprised the necklace were mostly a brilliant red, with a little yellow. They sparkled like aurora borealis in the sunlight that was streaming through a nearby window. They complimented her little sailor dress perfectly, and the Q told him that they had been endowed with Q powers, to protect Roberta from further harm from people like Bester. With a nod of approval, Pavel noticed that she was finally regaining consciousness, and left the room so as not to frighten her. The Q also told him that, in a year's time, this groovy chick's necklace would attract the attention of a hippie named Maury Ginsburgh, an electrician at a little music festival called Woodstock.


	21. Quinn The Eskimo

The Littlest Rogue

Author's note: For my younger readers who may not understand the reference to Quinn the Eskimo, there was a song in the late 60's called "The Mighty Quinn". If curious, check it out on You Tube. Also, numinol was mentioned in the original episode "Day of the Dove". I guessed that it was a pain medication.

Chapter 21

After a couple of hours, the telepathic visions of the girl and the alien seemed to cease for the others on the station, but not for Bester. They only intensified for him. He was barely able to focus on his real surroundings, seeing the same scenes of the dead alien and the unfortunate young blonde girl again and again. The over-the-counter pain pill he took earlier had little effect, so the doctor gave him some codeine. He had to stay in the med lab because of his injuries from being kicked while unconscious in the corridor; Dr. Franklin not saying much to him as he put a device on his damaged rib cage to facilitate healing. Bester was finally given an idea as to what the telepathic visions were about, getting beyond the hatred for him in the doctor's mind. If he had truly murdered those people while on a quest to find his family he knew nothing about, he still could not remember doing it. He had learned that he had been in another dimension, and had been shot in the back by an energy weapon called a phaser. The doctor told him that he had been stunned with one of these weapons before, after almost killing three people in that other universe, including the girl from his intensifying visions. His ex-girlfriend Carolyn had been released and was now in temporary quarters, planning to go to back to Mars on the next transport ship off the station, which was due to arrive the next day. However, Bester was not able to pick up on her plans. Somehow, they were being blocked. The mysterious two ladies he had seen earlier had disappeared, and Bester had a feeling of déjà vu about them that he could not quite understand. He was certain that he had seen them before, but he could not recall when or where, or what one of them meant when she said that soon the fun would begin. Fun for whom?

Pavel and the Q named Quinn had a strong hunch that they hadn't seen the last of Alfred Bester, despite the fact that he was, according to the Q, being telepathically punished at the moment for almost killing Roberta and for killing the poor Vaalian and had lost his memories of all of them. The others on the Babylon 5 space station in the alternate reality knew about Chekov and possibly Roberta, Isis and Miss O'Neil, and they had no doubt that Bester's superiors were going to order him to return to find his wife and child and bring them back to the Psi Corps. The captain did not want to put his friend's life in danger. Pavel and the Q also thought that it was not a good idea for Dinah Bester and her darling little girl to continue to stay on this planet, given the inhabitants' dislike of humans, present company excluded. Pavel appreciated Makora's hospitality, but he knew that he and his wife could not keep them safe forever, and did not wish to impose on his friend anymore than he had to. The captain looked down at poor Roberta, who was now only semiconscious, and wondered how the necklace of Spican flame gems was going to keep her safe and also how it worked. The Q read his thoughts and told him that the necklace created a strong personal force field, which acted like a starship's shields. It also gave her some telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Pavel then thought of a brilliant idea to insure the safety of all those concerned. He had the Q telepathically transmit a list of friendly planets that Dinah and Alice could settle on. Dinah wanted her child to have a pet cat, so they would have to choose a planet where there were felines. The only planet that seemed to fit all the criteria was Betazed. Dinah and her little girl decided to go there, and were soon whisked there with the wave of the Q's hand. Pavel and the Q thought it was the perfect choice, since Alice and her mother resembled the inhabitants. They would blend right in, and little Alice could have her very own kitty, without worrying about her father killing it. The Q also made the provision for Bester's telepathic ability, wiping Pavel's memory of their new location the moment they disappeared. They were both concerned that Roberta had heard Dinah's and Alice's new location in her mind as well, despite her semiconscious state, but the Q told him that he would make sure that those on Betazed were not put in harm's way, should Alfred find out through her where they were hiding.

As Roberta became more aware of her surroundings, Pavel quickly made his way out of the room so she wouldn't think that he was Bester. Her eyes focused on the aliens looking down at her, her first sight being that of the Q, who smiled at her benignly. She smiled back at him blankly, not realizing that he wasn't human and not having a clue as to who he was. She then caught sight of Makora and the Vaalian doctor and gasped, realizing that she was still on the planet where her friend Pavel had apparently been killed. She closed her eyes and started to cry. What were these aliens going to do to her? She was still too weak from the loss of blood to defend herself, and she felt quite dizzy. Her head ached and she felt as if she was at the mercy of forces she knew nothing about and was ill-equipped to face.

"Please do not be afraid, young lady. We will not harm you." Makora said as gently as possible.

She cautiously opened her eyes and stared at the aliens fearfully. She had not yet seen very many extraterrestrials, and she thought the man who had spoken looked very strange indeed, resembling the man that Bester had killed earlier.

"Who…and what…are you?" She asked, then considering that if they had meant to harm her, they would have done so by now. She had no idea how her life had been spared, her last memory being that of a sharp pistol butt to the back of her head. She winced with pain as the strange man with the white hair answered.

"My name is Makora. I am a Vaalian. I am Pavel's friend. This other man is Quinn. He is a friend of my wife's and is an alien called a Q."

Roberta stared at Makora for a long moment, and then more tears came.

"If you are Pavel's friend, why did you kill him?"

"I did not kill him." Makora answered, now realizing he would have to have a talk with his Russian friend about his new talent for stretching the truth. "He is alive and well and in the next room. He did not want you to mistake him for his double who almost murdered you."

"He's…alive?" The Vaalian nodded affirmatively. She sighed with relief, now realizing that Mr. Seven had been correct in his assumption that Dr. Pulaski had been ordered to lie. She tried to sit up and was hit with a wave of dizziness and pain. The other Vaalian who was obviously some kind of a physician, had offered to give her some pain medication known as numinol. Quinn knew that that medication was the only one in Atuka's medical bag that was effective on both Vaalians and humans. As he gave her a shot in her left arm, the medication acted quickly to quell her discomfort. She thanked him, not knowing what else to do. The Vaalian doctor bowed and departed. Roberta, calmer now, looked at the man Makora had called a Q.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Quinn."

She paused, looking him over, and then smiled weakly.

"You don't look like an Eskimo to me."


	22. Bester Gets Punished

The Littlest Rogue-chapter 22

It took a long time for Alfred Bester to fall asleep that night, because of the headache caused by the unrelenting telepathic visions and the horrible pain from his three broken ribs. The medicine the good doctor had given him was not working the way it should have. It was as if someone had put a sign on him that said "kick me" and there was no shortage of people on the station who were happy to oblige. As he finally began to nod off from sheer exhaustion, he suspected that Garibaldi was among the perpetrators. He watched the former security chief as he exited the med lab, joyfully giving him the finger on his way out, knowing that he was in no shape to retaliate. Apparently, Garibaldi was fully recovered from his injuries from when the psi cop had broken into his quarters a few nights ago and stole Zathros' interdimensional device. Alfred had been caught red handed by Garibaldi and Zathros and a fight ensued, Bester killing the strange alien in the process and nearly doing Garibaldi in as well. As Bester's sight grew dim, he noticed that Garibaldi had a smug, satisfied look on his face. He read in his mind that Garibaldi thought that whatever was happening to him now had been long overdue. Garibaldi also knew the name of the poor girl from the telepathic visions, and her name repeated itself in Bester's mind as he finally slipped into unconsciousness. The telepathic visions followed him into his dreams and Bester's sense of self soon dissolved. He was no longer Alfred Bester, psi cop.

He was now an alien named Melzar: a young new husband to his neighbor's equally young daughter named Shavara, whose name meant 'sunshine" in their native tongue. He had met her at an open-air restaurant in their village where she worked as a waitress. He had fallen hopelessly in love with her, as the humans say. He had previously dated her identical twin sister Shalana, but broke it off when he discovered that she was involved with terrorist activities. Shavara was a lovely girl, and Melzar had gathered up enough courage to approach her father to ask for her hand in marriage. Makora consented, and a short traditional Vaalian ceremony was conducted a year later in front of their god-machine Vaal. Makora, who had been appointed the high Cleric, explained to the young couple that, seventy years ago, Vaal would not allow such things to occur, and in order to be honest with the god-machine so as not to incur its wrath, they had formed a tradition in which all weddings were conducted facing the serpent-like image carved into the rock face. The new husband and wife symbolically put their hands on each others shoulders when they were pronounced married by the High Cleric. Shavara was now with child, watching lovingly out of the window as her new spouse went out the door to tend to their garden in the back yard, his two pronged staff in his hand. As soon as he made it onto the doorstep, they both gasped in astonishment and dismay as two strangers suddenly materialized. One appeared to be a terrified young human girl and the other…the other resembled one of the people who had a hand in almost destroying their world. Melzar raised his club to defend himself and his new wife and unborn child. The familiar-looking intruder struck the helpless young human girl hard on the back of the head with some kind of pistol, and then he aimed it at Melzar as the girl dropped to the ground, and fired. Melzar felt the beam from the gun as it hit him squarely in the chest. It felt like it was on fire as his young wife screamed and he fell to the ground in shock, mortally wounded, a large bloody wound draining the life from his body.

Bester awoke screaming, grasping at his chest in horror. At first, he didn't know who or where he was, but it then occurred to him that he had been a victim of a telepathic nightmare. He looked down at himself, and found that, except for the broken ribs, he was uninjured. He was breathing heavily, his eyes glazed with shock. The dream was very vivid, and he felt every nuance of that man's life. He now knew that he was being punished. He had apparently murdered two innocent people, and now he was paying for his crimes, and there was nothing he could do about it. As Franklin gave him a sedative to calm him down, Bester thought that he heard a vaguely familiar female voice say in his head that this was just the beginning, and that she was in agreement with beings known as Klingons that only a coward would take a young woman as a hostage. She also told him that it would take her a long time to forgive him for what he did to her new young friend Roberta, and to expect the next telepathic vision the following night. The same horrifying visions of experiencing the last moments of the life of his most recent victim recurred throughout the night. They finally ceased in the morning, and Bester, debilitated from his first ordeal, and dreading the next, quickly entered a dreamless sleep.

Shavara stared in shock at her unfortunate husband as she knelt beside his lifeless corpse. She wondered what had possessed the man in black. Why did he kill him? Melzar was only trying to defend himself and his household. The fact that the man looked just like her father's long-time friend had her puzzled as well. She had noticed that Pavel had phasered the stranger, and watched with astonishment as the murderer vanished. Pavel looked puzzled for a moment, and then knelt beside the girl, leaving the murder weapon where it lay. She watched as the Starfleet officer and her dad dragged the unconscious young human woman into her parents' house. Her mother was with her as Shavara began to weep and held her close. Shavara had her hands over her face as she sobbed, neither of them noticing that Melzar's mortal wound was being healed.

Just after Roberta said that Quinn didn't look like an Eskimo to her, the being smiled and waved a hand. In a flash of light, he was wearing a fur-lined parka, a pair of snow goggles, and was holding a cup of meat in his hand.

"How's this?" He asked. "Do I look like one now?"

Roberta grinned and nodded in amusement, thinking at first that he was some kind of quick-change artist, but then remembered that the other alien in the room called him a Q. Makora, of course never hearing of Eskimos before had a puzzled expression on his face. He and Roberta were told by Quinn that the correct term for these people of Earth's frozen north was actually Inuits. Roberta had never heard of a Q before and was intrigued. She tried to sit up to get a better look at him, but she was still too weak from loss of blood and felt very dizzy. As she lay back down, she finally noticed the stones in the beautiful necklace that the Q had given to her. She stared at them in wonder and astonishment, never seeing gems like these before. She was tempted to have them appraised when she got back to Earth, but then thought better of it after the Q explained about their attributes and that they were from a planet circling the star Spica in the Virgo constellation. Like in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, there were no gems like these on her planet. She closed her eyes for a moment as the room spun.

Sayana had returned from her visit with her daughter after her husband Melzar was miraculously revived and noticed that their young guest was conscious and recovering from her near fatal head injury. If it hadn't have been for the Q healing her, she would be dead by now. Makora's wife went into the kitchen and poured her some native fruit juice called paya juice. It was endowed with vitamins and minerals, and would help the poor young girl recover faster. Makora asked the girl if she was ready to see Pavel now, who was still concerned about frightening her and was still in the next room, and she nodded carefully, feeling as if her aching head would soon float off her shoulders. It would take a while for her to fully recover from her ordeal. Roberta gratefully accepted the fruit juice from the alien woman and took a sip. To her, it tasted like Sunny Delight. As Pavel entered the room, both he and the Q sensed that there was a Federation starship that had just entered orbit. He thought it would be a good idea if the chief medical officer from the ship could beam down to make sure Roberta was all right, no offense to the Q.


	23. Scarlet's Warning to Bester

The Littlest Rogue

Author's note: The multivitamin shot known as stokaline was introduced in the original episode "By Any Other Name", in the scene when Spock pretended to be sick to get himself beamed aboard the Enterprise in order to stop the Kelvans from implementing their invasion plans.

Chapter 23

The elderly Andorian captain of the USS Constellation-C,unknown to Chekov, stared in dismay at the viewing screen image of the planet Gamma Trianguli Six. They were not due to arrive at the planet for two days, and suddenly, they were whisked there by some unseen force. The crew of this ship was one of just a few sent by Starfleet on a mission of medical aid to the unfortunate victims of Kirk's very stupid mistake decades before. Captain Chav knew that the Gamma Triangulans did not like surprises, and they might view this sudden arrival to their world as a prelude to invasion. Chav did not like the idea that his ship might be the catalyst for a new war with these people. He turned his head to his right and spoke to his communications officer, his antennae twitching nervously.

"Lieutenant Fox, please inform the planet's officials that we are here early and have no hostile intentions."

"Acknowledged, sir." The almost Vulcan-like middle-aged human woman responded with outward calm. The rather plain-looking brunette turned to her console and put her earpiece in her right ear. The woman reminded the captain of another woman from Pike's ship nicknamed Number One, who was the first female first officer of a starship. It had taken several decades after that until human women were allowed to become starship captains, and that was only after a female human archeologist named Janice Lester had highlighted in a most dramatic way the unfairness of Starfleet's former glass ceiling. Chav always found that a bit strange, but had learned to accept that human males had a lot of odd ideas about their women. On his world, men and women had always been treated as equals. Suddenly, an entity appeared by the captain's chair in a flash of light.

"I have already taken care of that, Captain." The being informed him with a disarming and a rather disconcerting smile. He had changed back into his rendition of a Starfleet uniform before appearing on the bridge of the Constellation. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Q, and, no, Captain, I am not the one who has been pestering Picard. Call me Quinn. The Gamma Triangulans don't even know you are up here, with the possible exception of a telepath or two. I have a lovely little human patient from the twentieth century for your chief medical officer." The Q watched in amusement as Fox attempted to call sickbay. "There's no need to call the doctor, either, Lieutenant. I have already transported her to the surface."

The Q had disappeared momentarily as Roberta, her head still spinning, drifted in and out of consciousness, still suffering from the residual effects of the severe concussion and skull fractures she sustained at the hands of Alfred Bester. Before leaving, Quinn told them that he only healed her fractures, and that she would need further medical help for her head injury. Chekov asked him why he didn't heal her completely, and he said glibly that that was what doctors were for. Pavel could tell that the poor girl was trying to focus on him, but not having a whole lot of success. As the Vulcan chief medical officer of the orbiting starship appeared, poor Roberta once again lapsed into unconsciousness. Pavel looked at the doctor worriedly as she discovered that the Q had supplied her with a medical tricorder and a medikit. She raised an eyebrow in astonishment at being whisked away from her duties on the ship and at Chekov, whom she recognized from historical records. After some brief introductions, the Vulcan doctor named Akemar quickly scanned her new patient. She soon discovered that the unfortunate, strangely-dressed young woman was suffering from residual effects from a blunt force trauma to the occipital region of her skull, and was anemic from apparent loss of blood. The doctor gave her a shot of stokaline, a multivitamin shot that was much more effective then Vaalian paya juice, to help build up Roberta's strength. However, Roberta needed more help than what Akemar could provide on the planet's surface.

"I must beam her to the Constellation's sickbay, gentlemen." She announced, glancing at Chekov and Makora. "If I do not, the quality of her life will be compromised. There is evidence of swelling of her brain from her severe concussion."

"May I accompany you, Doctor?" Chekov asked, very concerned about Roberta's condition.

Akemar considered his request for a moment, and then agreed, thinking that the young woman will need to see a familiar face when she recovers.

It was night on Babylon Five, and Alfred Bester was still recovering from his injuries he had sustained at being repeatedly kicked in the ribs while unconscious in the corridor near the zokolo. Once again, because of his fractures and the constant telepathic visions, this time of Zathros, it took Bester a long time to get to sleep. This time, he lost his sense of self and became Zathros.

Zathros thought it would be a good idea to wait until Garibaldi was asleep so he wouldn't disturb him as he retrieved his property; namely, his interdimensional device that he had lent to him so he could retrieve little miss Bester from the other universe and return her to her mother. He knew that Michael had a lot on his mind lately and had forgotten to give it back to him. As he cautiously crept into Garibaldi's quarters, he did not realize that he was being followed by Bester, who had decided at the same time to take the device and go back to the other universe to get his family back. He had a fully-charged PPG gun in his hand. Zathros heard the noise of the gun's activation, whirled in astonishment, and tried to defend himself. He soon recognized Bester in the dim light of Garibaldi's quarters. The evil psi cop smiled and aimed his weapon, and fired at point blank range. Gasping, Zathros staggered backwards and was dead before he hit the floor. Garibaldi heard the gunfire, and tried to wrestle the weapon out of Bester's grasp. Bester, with his telepathic abilities, made short work of Garibaldi. Not wanting to kill him, though, he decided to cripple him, shooting the man in the legs while he rendered him unconscious.

Once again, Bester awoke screaming, but this time, he found the med lab strangely empty. A vaguely familiar-looking woman appeared to him, calling herself Scarlet O'Neil. She warned him that if he didn't apologize for what he had done to her friends and mean it, his next vision would be the most horrible he would ever receive; that of her cat-like alien friend Isis, whom he had viciously killed while she was trying to defend Pavel and Roberta. Bester soon realized that he was only reliving the last moments of his victims that he had killed, and he came to the logical conclusion that Roberta was probably still alive.


	24. Roberta Recovers on the Constellation

Chapter 24-The Littlest Rogue

Pavel watched with concern as the Vulcan doctor from the Constellation-C lifted poor unconscious Roberta by the arm and put it around her shoulder, at the same time standing Roberta up and then tapping her com badge. Even though Pavel knew that Vulcans possessed strength many times greater than humans, he was still amazed at the apparent ease at which the lady doctor was able to hold the unfortunate girl with one hand without dropping her. As the captain expressed his gratitude for Makora's hospitality, the two resident aliens watched in wonder as the two humans and the Vulcan doctor dematerialized in a shower of transporter sparkles.

After the humans disappeared, Makora's wife Sayana wondered if there was a more profound reason why the Q named Quinn had allowed the alien doctor to tend to Roberta's residual injuries. He quickly reappeared and explained that he was in love with the young human girl, but knew that in a year's time she would break his heart when she would meet another of her own kind at a music festival named Woodstock. He was trying to devise a way to alter her fate so she would be his and not fall for the hippie electrician named Maury. Also, the Q was curious as to how far human medical science had progressed during the last four hundred years. He soon had his answer to that question, realizing that Miss Lincoln would be well cared for by the good doctor and would recover fully with her ministrations. He, of course, would have instantly come to her aid and healed her completely if it were shown that she would suffer any lasting effects from her trauma.

Dr. Akemar laid Roberta gently on a bed in the Constellation's sickbay after they materialized there. Pavel had expressed an interest in meeting the captain, and Akemar knew that the Andorian was very interested in meeting him as well. However, in light of the fact that Roberta was from the twentieth century and had never seen a member of his race before, it would not be a good idea for the Andorian captain to meet him in sickbay. Also, Pavel was too concerned about Miss Lincoln to leave her side right now. He was holding the poor girl's hand as the doctor switched on the overhead equipment. She ordered her head nurse, a male Deltan named Landarr, who to Pavel looked like Mr. Clean minus the earring, to give her new patient twenty CC's of numinol. Curious, Chekov asked if Roberta was in pain and the doctor shook her head no. Noting his puzzled expression, she realized that he was mistaken about the drug's real function and quickly explained that numinol was actually an anti-inflammatory drug and that the dose the Vaalian healer had given her was too small to do much good. She informed him that pain relief was often a fortuitous side effect of the medication, which was why the Vaalian doctor had been misinformed of its true function. However, that previous small dose he had given Akemar's new patient was enough to ease some of her symptoms, even though it had already started to wear off when the doctor from the Constellation was whisked to the surface of Gamma Trianguli Six by the Q. The larger dose was doing its job, and soon Miss Lincoln was showing signs of improvement. As Chekov continued to hold the poor girl's hand, she stirred. She opened her eyes and focused on him, letting out a gasp and a weak scream, at first mistaking him for Bester. She closed her eyes in fear and started to cry.

"Roberta, honey, it's all right. I'm Pavel, not Bester. Don't be afraid. You are safe now. Nobody will harm you."

Tears fell from her eyes as she shuttered, her lips quivering.

"Oh…Pavel! He was so horrible! I…wish you didn't look so much like him!"

"I know, my dear. I'm sorry that I do."

Roberta, calming herself but still unable to look him in the face, instead opened her eyes, raised her head, and looked around the room. As she did, she became a little dizzy and lay back down with a little groan.

"Not…your fault. Where am I? This doesn't look like that planet I was on."

Pavel read in her thoughts with his newfound telepathy that she could not bear to look at him, even though intellectually she knew that he was not Bester.

"You don't have to look at me, dear. I know you're scared. You are on board the starship Constellation."

"Decker's ship?" She asked, still a bit groggy from her ordeal. Chekov grinned in amusement. He had told her about his former captain's friend Matt Decker, who had saved the galaxy from a derelict doomsday machine, killing himself in the process. He recalled that he had been on a secret assignment for Mr. Seven at the time.

"No, dear. This Constellation is the fourth starship with that name. It is commanded by an alien named Chav." The girl groaned again, this time in pain.

"I want to go home…to good old 1968."

Chekov smiled again with compassion, thinking of the many times in his long career when he felt the same way.

As Bester was reminded of what he had done to the cat-like alien woman again and again, he became horrified at his own brutality. He also realized that he was still unconscious and that he finally recognized the mystery woman as the one he had been pursuing for most of his career. That was why the med lab was deserted. He begged to be released from the terrible telepathic visions. Scarlet knew that he was now a broken man, and had learned his lesson at last. He was truly remorseful about his evil deeds. If he were to relive the death of the alien female she had befriended, he would quite probably literally die of fright. He had nearly decapitated her. O'Neil was not without compassion, so she asked her Dowd father and the Q who were sending the visions to immediately release him from the nightmares. He was also recovering from his injuries in the med lab, and as he regained consciousness for real, he found that his superiors at the Psi Corps had ordered him back to that other universe to find and retrieve his family. He knew that if he did, however, he would probably suffer a fate worse than death. They had given him some photographs of his former wife and his child so he would recognize them once he found them. He did not know what to do, so O'Neil and her father struck a deal with him. She reminded him of the time over forty years ago when he was assigned to find and capture her when he was a young man. He recalled being on the long gone Babylon Three space station and she told him that the gold and black uniform he had been wearing upon his return to the Babylon Three station was from the Federation universe. It, of course, was long gone as well, and Bester had forgotten about it through the years. He had learned he had been on a ship called the Enterprise as a result of a space anomaly. O'Neil continued, telling him that she could make him appear young again, re-creating the old-fashioned Starfleet uniform, and that if he was willing to enter that universe and apologize to Roberta for injuring her, disguised as Mr. Chekov then she would let him see his family again. He could also truthfully claim to the Psi Corps that he was unable to find them. However, that did not mean he could take them back with him. They had a new life now and were happy to be rid of him.


	25. Breakfast With a Concealed Monster

The Littlest Rogue-

Chapter 25

After Roberta had sufficiently recovered physically from her ordeal with Alfred Bester, Pavel Chekov conveyed his thanks to the chief medical officer of the Constellation and to the alien captain for their kindness. Pavel had been in contact with Mr. Seven intermittently when Roberta was still unconscious, and had informed him of what had happened. It had been two days since Roberta and Pavel were beamed up to the Constellation, and Miss Lincoln appeared to still be a little insecure and unsteady on her feet, even though she insisted that she was all right. Chekov had wanted to meet with the Andorian captain before their departure, but knew Roberta was not yet ready to meet someone that, to her, would be so alien in appearance. She had already been frightened enough during the past few days, and he knew that she wanted to go back to her century to recuperate mentally as well as physically. The Vulcan doctor suggested that Miss Lincoln could stay in sickbay while he met with their captain, and after a few assurances that Pavel would return shortly so she could finally go home, he left her in the capable hands of the chief medical officer, who decided to call for the assistance of their very human ship's counselor, a woman named Courtney Mudd, to keep her patient comfortable while she waited for his return, being that it was now time to undertake their real mission to render medical aid to the Vaalians. The Q made another brief appearance, telling the captain that he had made it appear that the Constellation had established orbit in the conventional way, so as not to startle the natives. At first, Roberta objected to seeing the counselor, knowing that in her time, people who went to see "shrinks" as she called them were subjected to ridicule at best and stigmatized at worst. She soon got the impression, however, that in the century she was in, there was no stigma attached to seeking professional help, and that meeting with this counselor would be strictly confidential, and would certainly not get back to Seven or anyone she knew in the twentieth century. With help from her necklace that she had received from the infatuated Q, she was able to sense that they were telling her the truth. She began to feel a little more at ease, and the counselor put her further at ease when she told her of her family history. Roberta was laughing at the exploits of Counselor Mudd's paternal grandfather as Chekov returned. Soon, Seven had beamed them back after Roberta said her goodbyes to the ship's counselor, learning with delight a bit later that her friend Pavel had actually known Harcourt Fenton Mudd, and that he was every bit the lovable scoundrel that Counselor Mudd had described.

It was night when they finally beamed back to Seven's apartment. Supervisor 194 took one look at Roberta and knew she had been through a horrific experience. She looked weak and tired as he gave her a gentle hug. He was very glad that she was alive, but was also concerned for her obvious stress-induced mental condition. Dr. Akemar had prescribed the multivitamin stokaline in pill form, instructing her to take one every morning until she felt strong enough to return to work as an intergalactic agent. Mr. Seven had agreed to give her a week of medical rest leave so she could recuperate, telling her to not be surprised if a Starfleet temporal medical officer should appear in her brownstone apartment. At the moment, Roberta was just happy to be back in her century.

Pavel accompanied her to her door as she unlocked it and let herself in, looking on with, to her, undue concern as she sank into an easy chair facing her TV. She closed her eyes for a few minutes, and then glanced back up at him with a worried expression.

"What's wrong, Roberta?"

"I have a feeling that I haven't seen the last of that creep Bester."

"I hope you are wrong, my dear. Will you be able to sleep tonight?"

She thought about that for a moment. Would she be able to sleep after all she had been through? Or, like the old song went, would she have to sleep with one eye open and one foot upon the floor? She was then reminded that she had that bottle of McCoy's red pills. Would she dare take one, knowing that there was a possibility, however slim, that Bester should appear again? Pavel was reading her thoughts, of course. "You still have your necklace to protect you, you know." He reminded her gently. He got up and locked the door for her and she smiled apprehensively, recalling the last time she had locked a door. It hadn't done a bit of good. Of course, now it was different. She was the only one with a key. However, there was the possibility that Bester could beam in like Seven. Pavel brought the pills to her with a glass of water, kissed her gently on the forehead, and activated his beam-back signal on his servo. She watched him disappear in the blue transporter haze, set the glass down, changed into her pajamas and took a red pill as she climbed into her bed.

The next morning came quickly, and Roberta awakened to the smell of breakfast cooking. Apparently, someone was in her apartment and she became a little apprehensive. Feeling much stronger than she was the previous night, she downed a stokaline pill anyway and put on her slippers, suddenly realizing that one of her robes had been draped over her green wing-backed chair for her. Puzzled, she took it and put it on as she cautiously stepped into her kitchen. With relief and a bit of cautious optimism, she recognized the would-be home invaders. Her new friend Scarlet was cooking eggs on the stove while the younger version of Pavel, wearing his yellow and black Starfleet uniform, looked up from the morning paper and greeted her with a smile. There was something different about him, and at first, Roberta could not figure out what it was. Then, she realized that his hair was much shorter than it usually was. He spoke to her gently…a little too gently for her comfort, even though he had a perfect Russian accent.

"Good morning, star shine. The Earth says hello."

"It's about time you got up, sleepyhead." Scarlet said casually, using a spatula to lift the eggs out of her frying pan and putting them on a blue willow plate. "How are you feeling today? Seven asked us to check on you."

"I thought a Starfleet doctor was going to do that." Roberta said suspiciously.

"There were none available for now," O'Neil answered, placing a plate of food in front of her. The younger version of Pavel set his paper down and pulled out a dining room chair for her. "I see you noticed Pavel's hair. He cut it so the people in this era wouldn't think he was the fifth Beatle."

"Birds were trying to build nests in it." Pavel explained. O'Neil chuckled.

"I see." Roberta responded, still wary. She sat down as the toast popped. Pavel buttered a piece for her and set it on her plate. She took a bite. It was very good.

"Mr. Seven told us what happened. I'm glad you are all right."

"Thanks. What are you two doing here, besides fixing me breakfast?"

"I came to tell you that I met my older evil double, Roberta. He asked me to tell you that he's really sorry for hurting you."

"He's sorry? I don't buy it."

"He's changed, Roberta." O'Neil said gently, sitting across from her with her own plate of food. "The Q and my father have been punishing him by making him relive the last moments of his victims' lives. His repentance is genuine. As a telepath, I can tell." She glanced at the young Chekov, who nodded in agreement. After they finished breakfast, they did the dishes for her and bid her adieu. As they dematerialized, Roberta heard Scarlet say "Good job, Mr. Bester." She fainted.


	26. Ensign Chakotay

The Littlest Rogue

Chapter 26

As O'Neil and Bester returned to Gary Seven's apartment, Seven noticed the uncharacteristically haunted and concerned look on the psi cops' face and asked him if there was something wrong. Bester replied that he couldn't shake the feeling that Miss Lincoln had heard Scarlet's compliment on his performance as Pavel Chekov. When they had arrived at her brownstone apartment, unknown to Scarlet, he had done a gentle scan of Roberta's mind, and found out the name of the planet where his family was hiding. He could not do anything with the information yet, since neither he nor Roberta knew where the planet was. Also, the young girl seemed uncertain if Betazed was the planet they had settled on, being that she was drifting in and out of consciousness when the Q and Chekov decided to have Mrs. Bester telepathically transmit the name of the world they had decided on. Bester also did not wish to incur the wrath of the Q or Scarlet's Dowd father again. Bester had not truly changed; only his tactics had. He had decided to be as gentle as a lamb, but inside he was still like a ravenous wolf. However, he really didn't want to cause Miss Lincoln any further distress. He was really beginning to enjoy her and he was the only one who saw the horrified look on the poor girl's face as they dematerialized. Neither he nor Scarlet could figure out how Roberta could have heard the alien woman. She had certainly not voiced the compliment to Bester, but had telepathically transmitted it. Seven stared suspiciously at him for a moment, and then explained that Pavel had told him that the Q being, who had partly been responsible for Bester's nightmarish telepathic punishments, had given her a necklace made of Spican flame gems, endowed with Q powers: among them being telepathy. Both Bester and O'Neil had previously wondered why the young lady had worn the necklace to bed, not knowing its properties, and now realized that she still felt insecure. They had compounded this feeling by invading her home, even though they were not there to harm her. Seven, still glaring suspiciously at Alfred, told them that in her weakened condition, a shock like the one she apparently just experienced could have killed her. Seven quickly ordered Scarlet to go back to Roberta's apartment to see if she was all right. Bester and Seven now knew that Scarlet's idea of Alfred masquerading as Chekov just to apologize for injuring the young girl was not such a good idea. Scarlet sensed that Bester felt unworthy of her generous offer to let him see his family one more time. Secretly, he was satisfied that his new plan was starting to work, and that they both bought his act of humility. He asked Seven to return him to his own universe, and Supervisor 194 agreed to do so. Before Scarlet left for Roberta's "pad", which she knew was nineteen sixties slang for a residence, she told the psi cop that her offer still stood, and that if he should change his mind, to let her or Mr. Seven know via Draal's com link inside Epsilon Three. Also, she asked her invisible Dowd father to change him back to his normal appearance before she left. Soon, they all found out that Roberta had vanished. The only thing remaining was one of her slippers.

Chekov had accompanied Isis to Betazed to see if Dinah and little Alice were doing all right after Seven confirmed that they were there. Isis had also read Roberta's mind and found out where they were hiding when her young friend had returned from her harrowing experience with Alfred Bester and had given the information about their whereabouts to Supervisor 194. Seven knew that Lwaxana Troi was secretly involved with his covert organization, and had taken upon herself the task of aiding fleeing Psi Corps telepaths from the other universe. She had contacted him via a secure link and told him that the Q had whisked Dinah and her little girl to Betazed, and that they were staying at her place for a while until they were settled on her planet. Chekov and Isis had left for the planet Betazed before Bester had reappeared with O'Neil in Seven's transporter. Bester was grateful for that, for if Isis had been there, she would have certainly warned Mr. Seven that he was not a changed man at all. Lwaxana Troi had opened her home to Dinah and little Alice, knowing how hard it was to settle on a world that one knew nothing about, and that they were fleeing from an abusive father and ex-husband, something that Mrs. Troi could relate to. Alice had become friends with her young son, and the two were outside playing when Pavel and Isis arrived. They seemed to be adapting well, though, and little Alice was thriving without her evil father. She, of course, realized that it would be a while until she could have her kitty, for it hadn't been very long since Mrs. Troi had agreed to let them stay there until they could find a home of their own. Dinah and Alice had learned that Betazoid cats were very different from Terran ones. They were all telepathic, had a form of rudimentary intelligence not present in Earth felines, and each had three ears. They had also learned that Lwaxana Troi was an ambassador for her home world, and that her daughter was the ship's counselor on the Enterprise-D. Chekov had to smile at that.

When Roberta regained consciousness, her head was aching again and she was lying on a strange bed, and a strange man in a blue uniform was bending over her. He seemed to know her and smiled at her gently. She soon realized that she was no longer wearing her pajamas, but was dressed in a form-fitting blue and black Starfleet uniform. Also, her necklace was missing, and a thought occurred to her that it was because of Starfleet regulations.

"Welcome back, Ensign." He greeted warmly, waving some sort of device over her head.

"Oh…man! I must be tripping on McCoy's red pill! First, I thought that O'Neil was in cohoots with Bester, and now I'm hallucinating that I'm on a Federation starship!" She said with a painful groan. She tried to sit up, but dizziness engulfed her and she had to lie back down.

"Hardly, Counselor." answered the strange balding man. "Those pills are not hallucinogenic. Let this be a lesson to you, young lady. Don't be standing under Torres when she's holding a heavy tool. By the way, she's very sorry for accidentally dropping it on your head. Luckily, I got to you in time. You are going to be fine."

"How did I…how did I get here? The last thing I remember ...was fainting in my apartment when I found out that Mr. Bester was masquerading as Pavel Chekov!"

"That was two years ago, Ensign. Mr. Seven asked us if it would be all right if you stayed on Voyager for a while, after your nearly fatal encounter with Mr. Starling and that time ship he stole from a Federation time traveller from the twenty-ninth century. He wanted you to have some training on how to defend yourself. He felt that experiencing life on a real Federation starship would make you a stronger person and would prepare you for the challenges in the career you had chosen as an intergalactic agent. You married Commander Chakotay here and decided to stay indefinitely."

"Hey…I thought that Gary—I mean Mr. Seven, wanted to start me out on Earth first, and then I would gradually be introduced to aliens and such." She winced again with pain. The doctor shrugged. A memory was starting to form in her mind. It was one of Seven ordering her to go to the nineteen nineties to sabotage a time ship from the future before a man named Starling could do damage to the fabric of the space-time continuum. He had caught her and had held her captive on the time ship as he launched it into space. Right before he put it into warp, she was beamed onto Voyager. He had been too busy with his time calculations to notice her absence.

She noticed another man at her bedside. This time, she recognized him. It was Commander Chakotay. Another memory manifested itself in her head. They had become romantically involved, and had married a year after she came aboard. She really dug Native Americans, and in her time, young people were beginning to adopt some of their ways. She raised her head slightly to look at him and found that he had replicated a dream catcher for her. It was hanging on what looked like an IV hook at the side of her bed and was quite beautiful. He smiled at her, kissed her gently on the forehead, and held her hand. She was also recalling that when she first arrived on the ship, she had been assigned as his personal yeoman. At that time, they had not realized how intelligent she really was. She soon became a valuable asset to the crew, even helping Seven of Nine get back to being human.


	27. A Baby Vanishes

The Littlest Rogue

Chapter 27

As Alfred Bester returned to his own universe, he too wondered about what had become of young Miss Lincoln. He sensed that Mr. Seven and Miss O'Neil were quite worried about her because she still had not fully recovered from her ordeal. He knew he had nearly killed the young woman without meaning to and that she was understandably utterly terrified of him. He had a hunch, however, that wherever she had gone, she would be all right. Now he had to get back to his own reality and his job as a psi cop. It was his sworn duty to track down and capture fleeing rogue telepaths and force them back to the Psi Corps for reconditioning, even if those rogues and blips were members of his own family. The mantra "The Corps is Mother…The Corps is Father" was something he firmly believed in. Even though he didn't know very much about his ex-wife and his child the Corps said he had, he was too well trained to give up easily. However, his brand of violence and heavy-handed telepathy had not worked as well in that universe as it had in his own. He had decided on a more subtle and gentle approach, so he would not get in trouble with the Q being or the Dowd again. The Q reminded him of the Vorlons, only the Q's were much more powerful. He recalled what O'Neil had revealed to him about the time when he was a young man on his first assignment as a psi cop in training. He had been transported by some unknown space anomaly unto a Federation starship and mistaken for his Russian double. He smiled like a grinch. He knew how to turn on the charm then and he knew how to do it now. If Miss Lincoln had not been given telepathic ability via the necklace that was endowed with Q powers, he certainly would have gotten away with his masquerade as Chekov. He had a hunch, though, that the planet called Betazed might prove to be more of a challenge. According to the small amount of information he had gleaned from Seven's and Miss Lincoln's minds, it was apparently a planet filled with humanoid telepaths. With the young unsuspecting female mundane, it had been relatively easy to pose as Pavel. To pull this off now, he would have to employ his most cunning strategies and he would have to look the part as well. He visited a tailor at Psi Corps headquarters on Mars, recalling the way the crew had looked on Voyager. In a week, he had an exact replica of a Starfleet uniform, even though his "comm. Badge" was nothing more than a piece of scrap metal. He sighed. It would have to do.

The Q named Quinn waited until he was sure that that devil Bester had departed back into his own universe before he appeared to a very concerned Mr. Seven and Miss O'Neil. Right before Scarlet left Miss Lincoln's apartment the second time, she had noticed the single backless pink slipper lying on its side on Roberta's small kitchen floor. There was only one possible explanation: Roberta had been abducted by some unknown agency. O'Neil picked up the remaining slipper, transported back to Seven's apartment, and still had it in her hand as the Q named Quinn appeared, announcing that he had transported Miss Lincoln to a quantum reality on the starship Voyager in the Delta quadrant.

Seven charged towards the Q courageously and scowled at him.

"Are you out of your cotton picking mind, Quinn? You know how dangerous the Delta quadrant is! Why did you bring her there?"

"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist, Seven. She's perfectly safe…well, not perfectly." Quinn gazed back at Scarlet. "By the way, you little refugee from the funny papers, you scared poor Roberta shitless. She fainted after you and Bester left. It was then I decided to transport Cinderella to the alternate reality, to get her away from Bester. She also thought that you were in league with that creep. Also, since the alternate Torres accidentally killed the alternate Miss Lincoln, I gave ours a bit of her counterpart's memories and a bit of amnesia. She's being cared for by the holographic doctor. She also now thinks she's a crewmember."

"Quinn…" Seven asked a bit calmer now but still with a concerned look on his face, putting his right hand on his cheek. "Exactly which alternate reality did our Roberta end up in? Also what killed the alternate Roberta?"

"She died from an even worse head injury, caused by Torres' botched attempted murder of Seven of Nine. I suspended the moment, disposed of the other Roberta in a dignified manner and substituted ours in her place. Our Miss Lincoln was brought by me to the reality in which you ordered the alternate to go sabotage Starling's stolen time ship. The counterpart was captured by Starling and rescued in the nick of time by the Voyager crew." Seven lowered his hand and thought about that for a moment. At the time of that adventure in his reality, he had considered giving that particular assignment to Miss Lincoln as her first solo mission, but then thought it was way too risky for the novice agent. He had decided to let the Voyager crew handle the situation.

There was one variable that the Q hadn't taken into account when he had transported Miss Lincoln into the quantum reality, and that was that Chakotay and the alternate Roberta had fallen in love with each other. They had married a year after the incident with Starling and that Roberta had become the ship's counselor. This was the reason that Chakotay was at her bedside when Seven's Roberta awakened. Their Roberta, of course, knew that her new husband was fifteen years older than she was, but in this century, that didn't matter. In her time, he would have been accused of robbing the cradle, but in this time, nobody objected. They were both adults, after all. Soon, she became pregnant, and was concerned that their child would never know his or her grandparents in the twentieth century. She had come to the decision that she would spend the rest of her life in the future, also knowing that her parents would probably never accept a half Native American grandchild. They both considered that their offspring would be much better off remaining in the twenty-fourth century, where prejudice was a thing of the past.

Seven of Nine entered sickbay quietly, and laid her eyes on who she thought was Mrs. Chakotay, who had drifted back into unconsciousness. The doctor informed them that it was a miracle that she was still alive. Seven of Nine had informed the captain that she believed that Lieutenant Torres had meant to hit her with the heavy tool, judging from the trajectory and the acceleration of the object. She had seen the half Klingon raise the tool in the air, aim it at her, and throw it down. It missed the former Borg by mere centimeters, but slammed into Mrs. Chakotay's skull, nearly killing her. She had come to inform the first officer of her suspicions. Chakotay was holding his young wife's hand. He glanced at the holographic doctor worriedly.

"Doctor, what about our baby? Is it all right?"

"Probably, Chakotay. A knock on the noggin usually would not harm a fetus. However, if you are worried…" The doctor waved a medical tricorder over Roberta's abdomen and nearly dropped it in astonishment. "No…this is impossible!"

"What is impossible, Doctor?"

"Your baby has vanished!"


	28. Another Court Martial

The Littlest Rogue-chapter 28

Captain Janeway was understandably very upset about what her chief engineer had done. Attempted murder was a serious court martial offense. Being that they were so far away from home, the captain had few options. She could, however, strip Torres of her rank, so that is what she did. Torres was now going to be called 'yeoman' for the next five years. However, like the late Mr. Sutor, the captain did not have the luxury of throwing her in the brig for the next sixty years, nor could she drop her off on the next class M planet they may encounter and maroon her there, despite the fact that she felt like doing just that. Torres was their problem. To dump her on some planet would be foolish. The Prime Directive would be violated, even though Torres would no longer be a Starfleet officer. Tom Paris was the most shocked of them all, and had decided to end their relationship. The captain decided to give her a choice: either to spend her off-hours confined to her quarters or confined to the brig. For the next five years, she would be under the command of the very person she had tried to kill. There was also the matter of her unintended target, Roberta, who had slipped into a coma, her unborn child having mysteriously vanished. Captain Janeway did not know the particulars about that, and had assumed that it had been a miscarriage. There was also the fact that the poor counselor had suffered two severe concussions in two years, which made her condition even worse. The doctor was due to arrive any moment to give his testimony, and to inform them of his patient's condition and progress. Paris had elected to stay in sickbay with Roberta, and was admonished to contact the doctor immediately if her condition deteriorated. Chakotay still believed that this Roberta was his bride and was also there, too worried about her to attend the proceedings, even though his testimony would have been helpful. As Paris kept a watchful eye on her overhead readings, Chakotay held her hand and talked to her softly, even though they both knew that she could not hear him. As of this moment, she was stable. Her brief moments of consciousness were encouraging signs, but the doctor was not optimistic about her prognosis. When Commander Chakotay had proposed to his young bride, Janeway was happy for them, but had mixed feelings. Chakotay was one of her best friends and was a very capable first officer, despite the fact that he had once been a Maqui. Being that the captain had limited options, it seemed that appointing the former Borg as a temporary chief engineer was a fitting punishment; even though the rest of the crew might think that they were being punished as well. She had considered appointing Vorek, but then thought better of it. The young male Vulcan was an able engineer, but he had no command experience. Seven of Nine was the most logical choice, being that she was used to giving orders anyway, even though she had had no real authority to do so.

Torres had accepted her fate graciously and was prepared to face the consequences of her acted upon Klingon impulse. She had hated that Borg ever since Seven of Nine had first come aboard the ship. However, her heinous action had had unforeseen and nearly fatal consequences for the very likable and very young new ship's counselor from the twentieth century. Mrs. Chakotay had tried to smooth things over for the two of them, and had asked Torres to try and imagine what it was like for Seven of Nine to suddenly be severed from the only life she knew, and having to come to grips with her newfound humanity. She had reminded them both of the time when she had first arrived on the ship, having also left her old life as a new intergalactic agent in training on Earth, having to adapt to a life she knew nothing about on a starship four hundred years in the future. Roberta Chakotay could relate to Seven of Nine and could understand what she was going through. They were both suddenly thrust into a new life, and it was especially difficult for her to come to terms with the fact she could not return to the twentieth century after she found out that she was with child. Torres understood and appreciated that, but she still didn't like the former Borg. Presently, Torres was seated at a long table in the mess hall, which had been converted into a makeshift courtroom. Those present watched as the doctor walked into the room.

"Doctor, I am sure everyone is concerned about Mrs. Chakotay. What is her present condition?"

The doctor sighed gravely, glared at Torres for a moment, and then answered.

"First off, Captain, the young lady that Torres injured is not Chakotay's wife. There is a quantum flux in her cellular RNA, and there is no evidence that the girl in sickbay was ever pregnant. At present, she is stable. I believe that this young lady is an imposter from another reality, although I have yet to ascertain why anyone would go to such lengths to impersonate our Roberta."

"How could that be?" The captain asked in astonishment.

"I have a theory that when the Krenim were messing with the fabric of space and time, they created a weakened area of space where another Roberta entered our universe. This is not unprecedented, Captain. On Star date 47391.2, Lieutenant Worf, the chief of security of the Enterprise D, encountered a fixed point where other quantum realities began to emerge. However, in this case, the young lady convalescing in sickbay only found our reality."

"Krenim Schmenim!" Another very familiar voice interrupted the doctor. "I brought her here to get her away from Bester!" They all stared at him in astonishment. The captain stood and gaped at him.

"Quinn! I thought you were dead!"

"Not yet, Captain. I have come from a point before I decided to kill myself. One of the reasons I will be doing myself in is that my heart will be broken when Miss Lincoln marries Maury Ginsburg after they meet at Woodstock. The young lady in sickbay is Roberta Lincoln, not Mrs. Chakotay. I must tell you also that my counterpart in this reality wasn't too thrilled when Roberta married your first officer. The poor girl was killed by your Klingon wench. We both still loved her, though, and couldn't bear to see her dead, so we resurrected her, gave her a concussion as well, and transported her unto the Klingon ship Kirk and company made off with when they escaped the destruction of the Genesis planet in the twenty-third century."


	29. She Was Missed Too

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 29

A note to my younger readers: The sand bats of Manark Four were mentioned in the original episode "The Empath".

"Spock…I'm going to tell you something that I never thought I would hear myself say…." As a doctor, McCoy knew that speaking to a totally unconscious person, who very likely didn't even know that he was in the same room with him was illogical, but he couldn't help it. He paused and scanned his friend and antagonist of many years before continuing. Although he knew that no thoughts whatsoever were running through the Vulcan's mind, a great many flooded the good doctor's; some not his own. McCoy realized that most Vulcans believed the so-called "katra" to be a myth; that people did not possess immortal souls but were souls themselves. However, McCoy realized that he could now speak his mind without being interrupted. Spock also would probably not recall this if they reached Vulcan and Spock recovered his thought processes from McCoy's own. The good doctor also enjoyed the thought that his old friend may have somehow partly cheated death. However, one look at Spock now was enough to convince Leonard that the Vulcan was as mortal as anyone else. It was only the Genesis wave that had brought him back to life. McCoy was glad that it had. He continued to speak to the unconscious man. "It seems that I have…missed you."

There was a sudden flash of light and another unconscious form appeared on the floor next to Spock's makeshift bed. Puzzled, the doctor blinked and turned in the direction of the flash. He stared in disbelief at a vaguely familiar-looking young woman, lying on the floor. She was wearing some sort of uniform. It was mostly blue with black on the shoulders. A single rank pip adorned the right side of her black turtleneck shirt. A large ugly bruise was forming on her forehead. He did not yet notice the Starfleet com badge pin on the left side of her uniform. Wondering if he was starting to lose his mind from the meld he had received, he spoke into a confiscated Klingon communicator. He did not recognize her at first, due to the poor lighting of this enemy ship they were in. They had thrown the single surviving Klingon named Maltz in the brig. Unknown to them, the Klingon had opened a secret compartment on his belt, removed a poison pellet and committed ritual suicide. That would account for the stench they would all encounter later on. Still mystified, McCoy glanced back at Spock and then back at the girl.

"McCoy to Jim! Sir, I think you'd better get in here!"

"What is it, Bones?"

"I think I might be losing my mind even more! A young lady has just appeared on the floor of this Klingon rust bucket! She's unconscious, dressed in some kind of uniform and appears to be injured." As McCoy spoke, he knelt beside the strangely-clad girl and waved a small scanner over her supine unmoving form.

Saavik had a puzzled look on her face as the admiral asked her to accompany him. She observed Chekov turning briefly from his station on the bridge and smiling as if he knew something. Only Saavik noticed this and she eyed the commander curiously, turning away as she followed the admiral. As Kirk and Saavik entered the room, McCoy was still kneeling beside the unexpected new arrival.

Kirk was astounded when he recognized her. The young woman was wearing a strange blue uniform of some kind and appeared to be seriously injured.

"A ghost from the past, Bones?" He asked, staring at her incredulously. They hadn't seen her in almost fifteen years, but yet she hadn't aged a day.

"If she is, I hope she's a hell of a lot friendlier." He completed his scan and looked back up at him. "However, at the moment, she looks harmless enough."

"I recommend caution, Admiral." Saavik said calmly. "The sand bats of Manark Four appear to be inanimate crystalline formations before they attack."

"Good point, Lieutenant. Well, Bones, as I recall from our first encounter with this young woman, she didn't know if we were friends or foes. Now it looks like the table has been turned. What about that, Doctor? Is she a sand bat in disguise?"

McCoy grimaced, recalling the last time sand bats had been mentioned. The aliens who had abducted them from a research station, the Vians, had nearly killed them all in their efforts to determine if a race of empathic mutes was worthy of being rescued from a supernova.

"No, Jim, she reads as completely human. According to my readings, she has somehow sustained a severe concussion. I think she is who she appears to be."

"She certainly looks like Roberta Lincoln…but I don't see how that's possible." The admiral stared at her for another long moment before continuing. "How did she get here and why is she here?"

"Who is Roberta Lincoln?" Saavik asked curiously.

"She's a young woman from the twentieth century that we met while under assignment from Starfleet Temporal to find out how Earth survived a potential nuclear threat during the beginning of Earth's Cold War with the Russians." Saavik raised an eyebrow, knowing Chekov's nationality. Judging from his reaction to Roberta's sudden appearance, she thought he must know something about her. Out of sheer curiosity, she excused herself and went to converse with the commander. "Well, Bones? How did she get here?"

"She appeared in a flash of light, Admiral. However, I can't answer your other question. Jim, please help me put her on that metal bunk on the other side of the room and try to make the young lady as comfortable as possible. Those damn stupid Klingons and their Spartan ways…I will be glad when we get to Vulcan."

"Of course, Bones." James helped McCoy get the human girl off of the dirty floor. After another more thorough scan, the doctor soon revealed to Kirk's astonishment that the new arrival was in the family way.

The Q named Quinn had told the captain that he had lessened the severity of both of the Robertas' head injuries so that they would both survive. Miss Lincoln had been transported by the Q from her apartment after she fainted to Voyager at the exact moment that Torres threw the heavy tool down, meaning to hit Seven of Nine. Even though Chakotay now knew that this version of Roberta was not his wife, he decided to let her keep the dream catcher that he had made for her. He was filled with compassion and concern for this Roberta, who looked exactly like his young wife. The doctor confirmed the Q's assertions that this young lady had very recently sustained two consecutive head injuries; one from that creep Bester and the other from Torres, and that they were certainly not two years apart. He also now knew the real reason why Miss Lincoln did not appear to recognize him when she had briefly regained consciousness. At first, he had contributed her reaction to him to the concussion, but now he knew that this young woman was not really knowledgeable about the Voyager crew. The Q had informed them that he had given Miss Lincoln some of Mrs. Chakotay's memories, so she wouldn't feel as out of place on the ship. His real reason for bringing her to Voyager was that he loved Roberta and wanted her for himself. He did not want her to meet and marry the hippie from Woodstock. He now realized that wherever she went, she would be loved. He felt he could not deny her a life of her own with her own kind. He had come to a mature conclusion that it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Gary Seven had begged him to bring her back to where she belonged, reminding him of the old saying: "If you love someone, set her free. If she comes back to you, she's yours. If she doesn't, she never was." The Q agreed with this, but informed Mr. Seven that it would be a while until both versions of Roberta were returned to where they belonged. He wanted to wait until they were both recovered from their injuries. After Chekov returned from his visit with Mrs. Troi and little Alice Bester and her mother, Seven had transported him onto the Klingon ship in the twenty-third century so that he could see to it that Mrs. Chakotay and her unborn child would be well cared for as well as Spock when Kirk and company reached Vulcan. Isis had stayed behind, now masquerading as Alice's new pet. Mrs. Troi wanted her to have one, having grown quite fond of the little girl. She reminded her of her own daughter at that age.


	30. Awakenings

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 30

Many thanks go out to my new Ukrainian friends Dmytro and Roman for the Russian in the proceeding chapters.

The alternate Roberta who had been on the starship called "Voyager" for two years and now carried the first officer's child had also carried a shameful secret. She felt she had been partly responsible for the death of her dear friend, agent 152, Pavel Chekov. After the telepathic nightmare in which Bester had injured and killed her friend, she felt that a part of her had died as well. When Voyager had rescued her from certain death from Starling's stolen twenty-ninth century time ship, she thought that she could bury the past and begin a new life in the twenty-fourth century. Even though her mission had nearly ended with her demise as well, the alternate Mr. Seven had agreed to let her stay on board the starship, knowing that she had felt guilty about the death of their most experienced agent. He knew that Pavel's death was not her fault. Bester had injured his brain and there was nothing they could do. McCoy could not halt the deterioration. However, Seven also knew that she was still grieving the loss of her dear friend and that she had to work out her grief and feelings of guilt and remorse herself. The alternate Seven had come up with a plausible explanation for the extended absence of Roberta to her parents: She was taking a language immersion course in a different country. Being that Russian was a difficult language and that translating encyclopedias in that language would be equally difficult, they accepted the explanation for their daughter's absence. They were, of course, a little concerned that she would be in a country where she might not be safe. Seven did his best to alleviate their fears for their daughter's safety, without telling them where she really had gone.

Before she had undertaken her first mission in the city of Kiev, tracking down Ralph Offenhouse so he wouldn't take unscrupulous advantage of his knowledge of the future, she was given a crash course in the Russian language, for Mr. Seven knew that she would be encountering people like Pavel's double in the future, as well as needing a bit of the language to successfully complete her mission. Even though she had the universal translator built into her servo, Mr. Seven knew that the language skills she would be acquiring would come in handy in the future. She had chosen to learn the opening lyrics to her favorite song of her era: Aquarius.

When she awakened from the concussion she had sustained at the hands of B'Elanna Torres, she gasped in horror and astonishment, thinking that she was about to die. The man at her bedside could not be her friend, but was most likely Alfred Bester. Gathering up courage she did not know that she possessed, she began to speak.

"Since I'm about to die anyway, here goes: _Kogda Luna v sed'mon dome._"

Pavel Chekov smiled at her with great amusement and compassion and responded.

"_I Jupiter v pare s Marsom. _Hello, agent 258."

Roberta stared at him for a few minutes in astonishment and perplexity. Her eyes filled with tears of joy and Pavel could tell that she was very puzzled, but yet at the same time, very happy that he was alive. But, how could he be? She then decided that this was some sort of trick that her injured mind was playing on her. Then, she recalled that the fiend named Bester did not speak Russian.

"Pavel…is that really you? I thought Bester had killed you!"

"_Da, _Roberta. It's really me. As you know, that evil _kulak _Bester does not know Russian. I see Mr. Seven taught you well." He watched her with compassion as she started to cry again.

"My gosh, Pavel….Seven and McCoy said you were dead. Because of my fear, Bester killed you!"

"_Nyet, _honey. You are now in another dimension in which I did not die… A Fifth Dimension." He added with a lopsided grin. She began to relax, smiled wanly and chuckled softly, her head starting to throb. She focused her eyes on him and for the first time, noticed his apparel.

"That's very funny…Pavel. Nice suit, by the way. Pink is your color." She paused and studied his amused and concerned expression, noting a five o'clock shadow on his face. She suddenly wished she had her necklace so she could be sure it was really him. To her astonishment, there was a small flash of light and it appeared around her neck. Her much older Russian friend looked like he wanted to say more, so she looked at him expectantly.

"I thought you would get a kick out of that. I like that classical tune myself. You said that your Pavel died. I remember what happened, dear. It was not your fault. You were terrified at that creep's sudden appearance and you thought you were having a nightmare. I understood that. In fact, you saved me by contacting Starfleet Temporal when you were older and sent a twenty-fourth century doctor to help me."

She considered his words carefully and groaned with pain. Disoriented and wondering where she was, she tried to sit up. Pavel gently pushed her back down, knowing that she was not yet ready to get up. He answered her unvoiced question as the female Vulcan doctor named Solith who was caring for her injury stepped forward and gave her a shot to ease the pain. Roberta soon realized that Chekov had somehow acquired telepathic ability as well, with help from her necklace given to her by the Q being.

"You are on Vulcan, Roberta." He answered gently.

"How…how in the world did I get here?"

"You suddenly appeared on the enemy ship that we had commandeered in a flash of light. I think it was the Q who brought you here, putting the Roberta I know in your place. I had to explain to Admiral Kirk who the Q was. He wishes to see you when you are better. To him, it has been a long time since he last saw you. I am curious, honey. Who is the father of your child?"

Roberta Chakotay's eyes widened with astonishment and a little bit of shock and wonder. She did not remember being with child, nor did she remember being married to the Voyager's first officer. She certainly hoped that the child she was carrying was legitimate.

Gradually, Roberta Lincoln regained consciousness. Captain Janeway was at her bedside, along with Seven of Nine, the holographic doctor, and Chakotay. The captain was seriously considering letting Roberta Chakotay wear her necklace from now on while on duty, if she should return to Voyager. It could have prevented the concussion.

"You are Captain Janeway…aren't you?" Miss Lincoln asked groggily. The captain nodded in the affirmative and smiled graciously. Roberta continued. "Do you have a suggestion box?"

"No, but as a captain, I am always open to suggestions."

"I…think you should require your engineering staff to wear hard hats." Miss Lincoln's eyes focused on Seven of Nine, at first feeling a little fearful of her without knowing why, and then on the captain and her 'husband'. "I shouldn't know who you all are, but I do. Please know that my being whisked to your ship was not my idea."

"We know that, Miss Lincoln." Chakotay answered instead, giving her a compassionate smile. "Welcome aboard."


	31. Roberta's Background

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 31

It took Roberta Chakotay a couple of weeks to fully recover from her severe concussion. She had learned that the Enterprise crew had been on Vulcan two days before she had regained consciousness, and she was also beginning to recover her memories. She found it a bit peculiar to hear her favorite brand new song referred to as a "classical" piece, but after giving it some thought, she realized that everything she had known in the twentieth century at this point in time was three centuries old. The Q saw no point in keeping her memories from her any longer. She also knew that she had been away from home for far too long, and that her parents would probably begin to get suspicious of the reason she had cooked up. By now, she should be able to speak Russian like a native, but she had no idea how she was going to pull that off. She realized that she would eventually have to come clean to her parents about her real whereabouts in her extended absence. She did not enjoy the thought of returning home very much. Her parents were wealthy, snobbish at times, and found fault with nearly every man she met, picking apart and destroying almost every relationship, saying that she would end up marrying below her station. They had met her employer, Mr. Seven, however, and to her relief found no fault with him. Because he was her employer, they did not know that he had also become her friend and her mentor. She, because of MIB rules, did not disclose what Mr. Seven really did for a living. Roberta also had not introduced them to Pavel; for fear that they would judge him because of his nationality. He had graciously offered to help her get back to the twentieth century, but the Q named Quinn had made another appearance as well, informing her that her necklace could be used to return her to the past too. Pavel had left the choice up to her about which route she should take. After a few days, she decided to use her necklace. When Chakotay had proposed to her, she saw her chance to not only start a new life by burying the past, but also to get out from under her parents' oppressive thumbs, and thought that once they found out that she was married to an astronaut of sorts, they might overlook the fact that he was a Native American. There was also the fact that she loved her new husband very much, and did not wish to subject him to her overbearing racist parents. It was at this time that Saavik, Spock's half Vulcan acquaintance, expressed an interest in becoming an intergalactic agent. Even though Roberta Chakotay had been estranged from her parents, she still felt that she should return home. Saavik should not go to twentieth century Earth alone. Having found out that Chekov was here for an undisclosed additional reason other than keeping her safe, Roberta decided to accompany Saavik back in time, introduce her to Gary Seven, and make sure that nobody found out that there was a genuine extraterrestrial in their midst. Her parents did have a right to know that they were about to have a grandchild as well. She had no objection to having the alien woman accompany her back to the twentieth century, finding her very interesting. Having only worked as an agent for six months, she did not know about Romulans. Pavel had explained that they were related to the Vulcans, but were a violent warlike species. Roberta didn't think that Saavik was all that violent, and figured that she was more inclined to embrace her Vulcan half, even though she sometimes showed her emotions. During her recovery, Roberta had also become re-acquainted with James Kirk, and had been introduced to Sulu, Uhura and Scotty. She was a little surprised to learn that Spock didn't remember her. She had learned that they had had to destroy the starship Enterprise to keep it out of Klingon hands. After disposing of all but one of the Klingon crew, they had taken the Klingon ship to escape the destruction of a planet called Genesis, a scientific experiment gone awry. Spock had bestowed upon Doctor McCoy all of his thought processes save two; saving the Enterprise and its crew from a madman named Kahn by fixing the warp drive with his bare hands. Doing so resulted in his death, but miraculously he had been reborn on Genesis. The other thought process was asking the admiral not to grieve. Learning all this helped Roberta understand why Spock was not yet quite himself, even though his mind had been returned to his body.

Admiral Kirk offered Roberta an arm as she stepped out of the door of the Vulcan hospital and she accepted gratefully, blushing at her memories of their first encounter, when she had thought that Kirk and Spock were about to mess with her country's rockets. She was quite unprepared for the planet's thinner atmosphere, however, and she started to gasp for breath. It was as if she was having an asthma attack. It was also like an oven outside. It had been quite temperate in the confines of the hospital's human ward, where the environmental controls were set at human norms. She had thought it strange that the Vulcan doctors and nurses were dressed in warm-looking turtleneck sweaters, and now she knew why. She tried to catch her breath as Dr. McCoy soon realized her difficulty. Quickly, he reached into his medikit and gave her a shot of tri-ox compound. Almost immediately, her breathing eased and she thanked him with relief. He smiled at her, knowing that she was not used to being on a different planet, and had learned that this one was only the third alien world she had visited. Pavel gave her a warning glance and instructed her in her mind to not disclose the names of the others; especially the Guardian planet. Doing so would violate the temporal Prime Directive. Even though she knew that the portal had been destroyed by a natural disaster, she saw his point. She also briefly wondered how her medical care would be paid for. Chekov picked up on this thought and told her not to worry; that the economy in the twenty-third century was quite different than it was in her time and that whatever expense she had incurred would be taken care of by Starfleet Temporal. Roberta had also been promised a tour of that Klingon ship they had all been on. It was parked within walking distance of the Vulcan hospital.

As they approached the alien craft, she gasped for another reason. The ship looked very menacing, even though she knew that it was perfectly safe to approach it. It reminded her of a carrion eating bird, swooping down to collect its next meal. Never before in her life had she seen a genuine extraterrestrial spacecraft up close. She observed some Vulcan workmen enter the ship from an open hatchway. Kirk explained that they were refitting it for human use, and that because of what they had done with the ill-fated Enterprise, they would have to eventually return to Earth to face a probable court martial.

As she stepped onto the ramp connected to the craft's main entrance, her olfactory nerves were assaulted by a horrible stench. It smelled like something had died. McCoy took out his medical tricorder, also detecting the foul odor. It led them all to the ship's brig, where they discovered the remains of the last remaining Klingon named Maltz. Roberta was glad that she wasn't returning to Earth with them, but felt a little sorry for what they would have to endure on their way home as she was given a filter mask. It helped block out most of the offending odor, but she still was beginning to get queasy.

"Hey, you guys, where is your Lysol?"

"What is Lysol?" Kirk asked curiously.

"It's a handy dandy disinfectant spray." She smiled and pretended to be a television spokesperson. "Have a dead Klingon smelling up the place? Just use our special spray and your nasty smell will be gone, even if he's still under the couch."

"I think it would take a lot more than disinfectant spray to get rid of this foul stench." Chekov said thoughtfully, smiling at her with amusement. He glanced at Kirk, who was also smiling. "Sir, I think one of our priorities should be to fix the environmental controls on this bucket and to pop this stinky Cossack out of the nearest airlock on our way home."

"Agreed, Commander." As Kirk said this, the Q made another appearance, bowed politely to the Starfleet officers present, and turned to Roberta.

"Are you ready to go back to your century, Mrs. Chakotay?"

"In a few minutes, Mr. Quinn. I need to say my goodbyes first. When you guys leave, have a safe journey back." She smiled at Kirk and gave him a warm hug. "I hope they don't give you too much grief when you get back to headquarters, sir. It was nice seeing you again after all this time."

"Likewise, Miss—I mean Mrs. Chakotay."

She smiled and turned back to Pavel and as she spoke to him, he gasped in astonishment. She was speaking perfect Russian.

"_Ya lyublyu tebya, Pasha. Zhelayu tebe udachno vernut'sa na Zemlyu."_

Kirk and company had no trouble understanding her words, for to them she was speaking English. She told Pavel that she loved him and to have a safe trip back to Earth.

Pavel was astonished for another reason. She had used the pet name "Pasha". He knew that she did not know this variant on his first name, and it was the first time he had heard it since his breakup with his ex Russian girlfriend Irina years before.


	32. Give and Take

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 32

At the same time as Mrs. Chakotay was getting her memories returned to her on Vulcan, Miss Lincoln, having fully recovered from her injury in sickbay, was offered a tour of the starship Voyager. She found it strange that they would offer her the tour at first, and had insisted that she knew her way around the ship. However, she was still a bit mystified that she possessed some of her counterpart's memories. It was as if she knew every part of the ship, even though she had never set foot on it. She had the feeling that she had been on the spacecraft for a long time, even though she hadn't. Suddenly, after leaving sickbay she felt a wave of dizziness and disorientation, and her familiarity with the ship and its crew came to an abrupt halt. As Chakotay, Tuvok, the captain and the holographic doctor watched in concern, she staggered forward and leaned against the nearest bulkhead in the corridor for support. Instantly attentive, the doctor whipped out his medical scanner. Finding nothing physically wrong with her, he asked her if she was all right. For a few minutes, she just stared at them blankly, now not knowing who they were or where she was. She gaped at them with fear and dismay. The captain stepped forward, guessing at what had just occurred.

"Don't be afraid, Miss Lincoln. You are among friends. Are you all right?"

She looked around with a bewildered look on her young face, but slowly nodded in the affirmative.

"Where am I and who are you?"

"You are on the starship Voyager, young lady." The holographic doctor answered instead, still waving his scanner over her head. "I'm the ship's EMH."

"I'm on Voyager? What am I doing here?" She stood erect and looked down at her attire, wondering where her pajamas and her necklace of Spican flame gems were.

"The Q transported you here to get you away from Bester." Tuvok answered calmly.

"Oh….I see." She winced when Pavel's double's name was mentioned, looking around in bewilderment. She looked at the doctor and then at the captain, marveling at the fact that a woman could be in command of an advanced spaceship. In her time, such advancements for women were extremely rare. "What is an EMH? I have never heard that term before."

"An EMH is an anagram that stands for 'Emergency Medical Hologram.'" Tuvok answered stoically.

She looked Tuvok over and then noticed his ears. She then realized that he was a Vulcan like Spock. She did not know what a hologram was, so they had to explain that term as well. Gradually, she began to realize that these people were not going to harm her. They asked her again if she would like a tour of the ship and she, still a bit bewildered at being taken from her home in the twentieth century, consented with a little trepidation. She began to realize that this was the ship that little Alice Bester had been on. The only person that she was acquainted with from Voyager was Torres, the half Klingon woman that Mr. Seven had abducted so Miss O'Neil could take her place. She asked if it would be all right to visit her, finding out that she was confined to her quarters for an attempted murder of the former Borg named Seven of Nine. She found it odd that the captain would refer to the former Borg as "Seven", thinking at first that she was referring to her employer. Seven of Nine had gone back to the bridge, having sensed Miss Lincoln's discomfort at her presence in sickbay when she had finally awakened from the head injury. Tuvok nodded in the affirmative and led the way to Torres' quarters; Chakotay, the holographic doctor and Captain Janeway following closely behind.

Alfred Bester was now ready to return to the other universe, wearing his tailor made Starfleet uniform. As he approached the planet Epsilon Three, he was visited in his personal shuttle by a holographic projection of the Minbari caretaker named Draal, who asked him what his intentions were. He reminded the alien that he was coming down to the planet's interior via an invitation and a promise that if he apologized to Miss Lincoln in the form of a younger version of Mr. Chekov, then those in the other universe would let him visit his family on the planet Betazed with help from the newly discovered Guardian portal. Being that Bester was not wearing the uniform of a psi cop, he agreed to let him proceed. However, he was still a little concerned that Bester was up to no good, knowing that the uniform that he had made was not quite the same as the ones used in the era he was about to enter. Draal reminded him that he was being watched by O'Neil's Dowd father and very possibly the Q being and that if his true intentions were to harm someone, and if he did, he would start to relive the last moments of all of his victims' lives again and would relive them for the rest of his life. Bester was well aware of that fact, but insisted with a sly smile that he would behave himself. Draal, not really willing to believe him, but knowing about the aforementioned agreement, decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Little Alice marveled at all the little kitties with three ears in the pet shop on Betazed. They were all saying in her mind, "Pick me! Pick me!" save one with black fur and a shimmering ribbon collar, which simply looked up at her calmly and meowed. It also had three ears, but Alice picked up that this was no ordinary cat, but was obviously Isis in disguise. The proprietor of the pet shop did not know where that cat came from, and was certain that she hadn't been in the display window with the others before the little girl and her mother stepped into the shop with Lwaxana Troi. It was easy for Alice to make her decision as to which cat she wanted. The clerk decided to let the child have the animal, shrugging off the feeling that it had been dropped off or abandoned by a previous owner. It obviously was healthy, and the clerk decided not to charge for it, being that it was not a part of the shipment of kittens that had recently arrived. As Alice carried her new little friend out of the door, Isis told her telepathically that she had made a wise choice and that if her father should materialize, to not be afraid. She was there to protect her and her mother from harm in the event that that might happen.


	33. Assimilations

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 33

There was another very good reason why Torres had attempted to kill Seven of Nine. She had observed the former Borg extend her assimilation tendrils to the back of Mrs. Chakotay's neck. Torres felt that she had to save her new young friend from a fate worse than death. She had testified of this at her trial, but of course no one believed her. There was not enough evidence to support her claim. Also, Seven of Nine could not remember trying to assimilate the young counselor, nor could any of them think of a reason why she would want to do so.

Up to this point in time, the Q had been evasive on this particular point. He knew that what Torres observed was correct, but Seven of Nine was being manipulated remotely by the Borg queen. She had implanted a surveillance device inside Seven of Nine's ocular implant above her left eye. Their objective was not to assimilate Mrs. Chakotay per se, but to find out what she knew about Gary Seven's secret base of operations so that, once it was finally found, they could assimilate him and the race of people he was working for. The Borg queen thought that assimilating Mrs. Chakotay was the only way to obtain this information. The Q knew that Miss Lincoln had no knowledge of Mr. Seven's secret hideout, and didn't even know he had one. She had assumed that he was an Earthling and that he was working for the United States federal government. That was another reason why he switched the two Robertas; to throw the Borg off the scent, so to speak. He knew that as long as Seven of Nine was being spied on by the Borg, Roberta Chakotay, who knew the whereabouts of Mr. Seven's hidden planet, was in danger of being assimilated, along with her fetus and her boss. He couldn't allow that to happen. The Earth needed Mr. Seven and his agents. If the Borg succeeded at assimilating Miss Lincoln, they would not find out anything from her and would have to sever the link with her and Seven of Nine. Being that Roberta was from a primitive era, she would be deemed unworthy of complete and permanent assimilation. Roberta also was informed by Seven of Nine, who was completely unaware that she was being remotely controlled by the Borg queen, that Mr. Seven was only one individual, and that the Borg usually assimilated entire races. The first officer asked her why the Kazon weren't assimilated, being that they possessed advanced technology. Roberta still felt uncomfortable around her, but felt there was safety in numbers. The former Borg, in an effort to set Miss Lincoln at ease, decided to use a little humor. She said that assimilating the Kazon would be nearly impossible, considering that their hair was the consistency of steel wool. It was impossible to tell where their hair ended and the bony outgrowths within it began. The Q, of course, could not let the Voyager crew in on the Borg's devious plan. The knowledge at this point in time would endanger the crew and both versions of Roberta. The Q named Quinn also knew that Seven of Nine was not aware that Miss Lincoln did not possess the knowledge the Borg sought. Even if Miss Lincoln was assimilated, the experience of being part of the collective would be only temporary. He also considered that letting the young lady be assimilated would help her realize that there were far worse things than Bester and that her fear of him would probably diminish from her encounter with the Borg.

By now, the Q had given the necklace endowed with Q powers back to Roberta Lincoln on Voyager, and was waiting for the right time to tell her of the Borg's plans telepathically. Under the watchful eyes of the holographic doctor, the captain and Mr. Chakotay, she entered Miss Torres' quarters. Torres, overjoyed to see that Roberta was fully recovered, but not expecting the captain to be accompanying her, stood quickly at attention.

"At ease, Yeoman." The captain said coolly, raising a phaser set on stun. "Roberta would like to talk to you."

Torres' young friend stepped forward. Roberta knew that the captain still was just as wary of her former chief engineer as she was of Seven of Nine, but she thought that brandishing a firearm was a bit too much. The Q told her telepathically that it was a logical precaution, considering the circumstances.

"Hello, Miss Torres." Roberta paused for a moment and looked at the half Klingon engineer curiously. "The captain told me that you wanted to kill Seven of Nine. Why would you want to do that?"

Torres sighed.

"As I told the captain at my trial, Roberta, that Borg bitch was trying to assimilate you. I had to stop her."

"In twentieth century terms, B'Elanna, you are beginning to sound like a broken record." The captain said sternly. "Nobody is buying that and you know it!"

"Hold on, Captain." Miss Lincoln said calmly. The others present saw that Roberta's necklace was glowing. "She genuinely believes that she saw Seven of Nine extend her tendrils. The question we should be asking is 'why'?" The reason finally came to her in her mind and she gasped in horror. She now knew the real reason that she had been transported to the starship Voyager and it wasn't just because the Q wanted to get her away from Bester or that he didn't want her to meet the hippie named Maury at Woodstock. It was to protect her counterpart and Mr. Seven from being assimilated by the Borg. Upon hearing this, the captain decided to give Torres her rank back, but she still was to serve time for the crime of attempted murder, even though it might have been a justifiable action. Roberta also now knew the reason why she had felt uncomfortable around Seven of Nine.

When Bester materialized on Betazed, he was standing on the front porch of Mrs. Troi's house. He smiled as he heard his little girl playing in the back yard. She was playing with Mrs. Troi's young son on a makeshift teeter totter as Isis in cat form and Dinah Bester watched on the back patio. Dinah soon became aware of her former husband's presence and tensed up. Little Alice thought that it was the man she had grown to know as 'Uncle Pavel', back after making sure that Roberta Chakotay was safe on Vulcan.

Dinah called to her urgently as Alfred entered the back yard. Alice obediently dismounted the see saw and ran to her mother, now seeing that the man was her father and screamed in fright. Dinah hugged her child protectively and eyed him warily.

"Alfred. What are you doing here?"

"Relax, Dinah. I am not here to harm you or my daughter. I am simply here to visit, and I feel that as your former husband, I do have visitation rights."

She regarded him coldly.

"After what you have done, you should have no rights at all. You rightfully should be in jail. What prompted this visit and what's with the costume?"

"I didn't wish to frighten Alice or your elderly hostess." He paused for a moment, examining his Psi Corps gloves on his hands. They had given him away, despite his efforts to look like Mr. Chekov. "I have also come to beg you to reconsider your decision. You belong in our universe. Little Alice deserves proper training in developing her telepathic skills."

"She can get training here, Alfred. In case you hadn't noticed, this planet is the home of a telepathic species."

"I know that, but despite the fact that you chose to 'divorce' me, I will always be Alice's father. Please come back with me willingly. I promise you won't be harmed."

"We won't go back with you, Alfred. Alice and I are happy here. We would not be happy in our former universe, and I don't want our baby to be forced to join the Psi Corps. You have promised not to harm people in the past, but you have never kept that promise."

Alfred raised a gloved hand and concentrated. As Mrs. Troi's young son watched in shock and horror, Mrs. Bester and Alice's faces suddenly went completely blank.

"You are coming back with me…willingly."

The boy now knew that Bester was using telepathic coercion to force them back. He stared at the dark haired stranger Dinah had called 'Alfred' for a moment, screamed, and ran into the house to tell his mother as Bester, Dinah and Alice dematerialized.


	34. Bester is Deceived For The Last Time

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 34

**A note to my many non-reviewing readers: After this chapter, I will wait until I have more than two reviews before posting the next one. Many thanks to Lady Mallard and Foxcat93 for your very kind reviews.**

Mr. Bester thought his abduction of his wayward family had gone way too smoothly. Then, he considered that they may have gone soft, letting their natural telepathic abilities atrophy. People with the same abilities as himself usually put up more of a struggle to evade psi cops. In addition, even though his little girl acted appropriately frightened, there was something not quite the same in her reaction to seeing him again. His re-appearance seemed to annoy her more than frighten her. In a way, he was glad. In his own twisted way, he did love his child and did not wish to scare her needlessly. He also knew that psi cops such as him were always subjected to a certain amount of trepidation from rogue telepaths and blips they were pursuing.

Draal suspected that there was something not quite right about the way Alice and her mother were acting as well, but not knowing enough about humans and their interactions, and seeing that they had not been physically harmed even though they did appear to be in some kind of a trance, he let them go.

As Alfred and his family made it back to Mars, he immediately locked them in a holding cell at the re-education center at Psi Corps headquarters. As he stepped away from the cell, briefly satisfied with another capture of fugitive rogue telepaths, he suddenly forgot why he was there. He soon discovered that nobody else knew why he was standing there either. Curiously, he went back to the cell where he had been moments before and peered in. The cell was empty. Chalking it up as a senior moment, he shook his head in dismay and perplexity, puzzling over the strange outfit he had on, and then, shrugging, decided to go back to the head office for his next assignment.

Dinah knew that her little girl possessed precognitive abilities, which was a very rare gift among telepaths in their former universe. In the days before Alfred's arrival, the child was experiencing night terrors and awoke screaming from her afternoon naps, convinced that her father was going to make another kidnapping attempt. Mrs. Troi was picking up on her visions, and became convinced as well. She contacted Mr. Seven on a special secret subspace secure channel, and found out that Scarlet O'Neil had made good on her promise that if Mr. Bester apologized to Miss Lincoln for harming her, that she would let him visit them one more time. She assured them that if he tried anything nasty, he would relive the last moments of all the people he had murdered during his career as a psi cop. It was then that Scarlet and Mrs. Troi came up with the brilliant idea to make facsimiles of both little Alice and her mother, with help from Scarlet's Dowd father. Scarlet and her father remained invisible while the scheme was taking shape. It worked brilliantly. Mrs. Troi's little son was let in on the plan after Alfred disappeared with his phony family. To tell him earlier would have caused the plan to fail, for Alfred would have picked up on the deception.

As Mrs. Chakotay and her new alien friend Saavik materialized within her apartment, she half expected it to be vacant. In her absence, Mr. Seven had asked her landlord if it would be all right to have Miss O'Neil live there while Roberta was away, using the cover story that she was abroad, studying a foreign language. The landlord said he didn't care who lived in the apartment, as long as the rent was paid on time every month and no one trashed the place. Roberta was a little surprised to see a familiar-looking female child perched on her round braided area rug in front of her television set, amusingly transfixed by a commercial for Rice-A-Roni. As the commercial ended, Roberta could see that "I Dream of Jeannie" was on. As Saavik stood where she was, Roberta sensed that the half Vulcan former science officer of the USS Grissom was still wary. Sensing no danger from the little girl, Mrs. Chakotay greeted her warmly. The child turned and smiled as Roberta wondered how she got there and where her mother was.

"Hi, Roberta! Mr. Seven thought you might come back. Mommy is in the next room. In answer to your other question in your head, Miss O'Neil's daddy Mr. Dowd brought us here so my father wouldn't get us. He made fake doubles of us to fool him. It was Mrs. Troi's and Scarlet's idea." The child unfolded her legs and stood. "Who is your friend?"

"Her name is Saavik. She came with me because she wants to be an agent for Mr. Seven. Who is Mrs. Troi?"

"She's the lady we were staying with on the planet Betazed. Her daughter is the ship's counselor on the Enterprise in the twenty-fourth century. Why are you here and how did you get here? I thought that you were on that starship far away."

"I was. I am only here temporarily. I must tell my parents about something and introduce Saavik to Mr. Seven. We got here the same way you did."

"You are going to have a baby." The little girl said with another smile. "Mr. Seven told us." Mrs. Chakotay nodded in the affirmative and smiled back.

The Borg ship had trailed the unsuspecting starship Voyager under cloak for several days, the collective waiting for the chance for the Borg queen to board the craft and question Miss Lincoln. She was keeping close tabs on Seven of Nine, and was waiting for the right time to make her move. She was amused at the way the crew was making futile efforts to protect the girl from the twentieth century, posting security guards at the entrance to her guest quarters. Although the necklace endowed with Q powers intrigued the queen, she knew that without it Miss Lincoln had no special abilities. It should be a relatively simple matter to get the information they were seeking if they could get it away from her. At last, the Borg queen saw her chance. Miss Lincoln was wearing the necklace, but the Borg queen was going to make Seven of Nine remove it. It was late at night on Voyager and Seven of Nine was regenerating in her alcove in the cargo bay. Miss Lincoln was at last sound asleep in her quarters. The doctor had given her a mild sedative so she could sleep, because she was very nervous and insecure about her possible encounter with the Borg. Switching on the link that controlled her former drone, the Borg queen watched as Seven of Nine mindlessly left her alcove in the cargo bay, moved down the corridor to the weapons locker and took a phaser to stun the security guards, and headed towards Miss Lincoln's guest quarters.


	35. Meet the Parents

The Littlest Rogue-Chapter 35

Mr. Seven had given his permission to Mrs. Chakotay to tell her parents the whole truth about her whereabouts during the last couple of years, knowing that they no longer bought the falsehood that she was overseas studying a foreign language. They were also presuming all sorts of awful things about her fate, being that they had not heard from her at all in two years, such as her meeting with foul play and were demanding that they should be able to see her and talk with her. He had taken it upon himself the task of informing them that she had eloped with a Native American named Chakotay, and that she was alive and unharmed. Roberta's mother was quite shocked to learn that she had married a "buck" and had gone against their wishes and, according to them, married below her station. They were also concerned that this man probably drank "fire water" too much. Seven was a little mystified at their attitude, and told them that she didn't marry a male deer, but a human being and that he was no drunk. He also told them that he made a good living as an astronaut. He didn't elaborate on that, leaving it up to Roberta to fill them in about her new husband. She was over twenty-one and it was now time for them to accept that their daughter was a grown woman and no longer governed by them. Seven also knew that if Roberta told them the whole truth about her real whereabouts, that if they told anyone else on twentieth century Earth nobody would believe them. They would probably not believe it at first, either, so as proof, he let Saavik accompany her.

Saavik, being a lot taller than Roberta, knew that borrowing twentieth century apparel from the younger woman would not be an option. She did not care much for mini-skirts or fish net stockings, or anything in Scarlet's wardrobe, either, so Seven replicated more modest early seventies clothes for her. She had her ears hidden by her hair in a pony tail. He had replicated a boat neck shirt with horizontal blue stripes, and a pair of Capris. On her feet were white anklets with navy blue tennis shoes. Roberta commented that she looked very "mod" indeed. Roberta had chosen to wear her pink and orange mini dress with the black sash and matching cape, the same outfit she had worn at her first meeting with Mr. Seven. She was glad it still fit and Seven commented that she looked good in it.

After Seven informed Mrs. Bester and little Alice that it was safe to return to the future and to their new home on Betazed, they said their goodbyes and departed via his safe-like transporter. It was time for Roberta to face the music and confront her parents. She introduced them to Saavik and told them the whole truth about where she had really been and how she met her husband. She could smell her dad's Hai Karate after shave, his favorite brand. He was dressed in a white smoking jacket with satin lapels and was holding a martini in his hand. He looked very handsome and she told him so. Her mom was dressed in one of her favorite dresses, a chartreuse number with a wide asymmetrical collar. She was wearing her favorite brooch on it: a very pretty cloisonné locket which held pictures of Roberta of when she was a baby. Roberta also told them that they were going to be grandparents in a few months. Of course, they did not believe her story at first, until she asked her alien traveling companion to show them her ears. Saavik complied. Her parents were a little surprised but still skeptical, considering that her pointed ears and high arched eyebrows were some sort of birth defect. Roberta asked her mother to let her have the pin and asked Saavik if she would mind if she poked her with it to prove to her mom that she was a real extraterrestrial. Saavik gave her consent and when Roberta's mom saw her green blood, she nearly fainted. Her dad just stared at the alien woman with surprise and wonder, and then finished his drink in one gulp. Knowing that their daughter had never lied to them in her life, they now knew that she had been somewhere that neither they nor she could have possibly imagined. They also knew now that if they told anyone about what they had learned that the security of not just the United States but the whole world might be compromised. Needless to say, they decided to keep their mouths shut. After the visit with her parents, in which she also told them about the Q being, he appeared and told her that it still was not safe to go back to Voyager and that a counterpart from another dimension had just been abducted and partially assimilated by the Borg, in an effort to find out about Seven's hidden base of operations. In the twenty-fourth century, the planet was now "hidden" in plain sight, and Seven had unintentionally let the name of the planet slip one time during a conversation about possible alien worlds that Mrs. Chakotay might visit in the future when she had first become an agent. Mr. Seven also told her to not be concerned about her counterpart, for she was about to be rescued by Saavik and her unborn future son, a young man recruited by Mr. Seven in the early nineteen nineties named Nick Ginsburg.

Nick was a bright young man, thin and wiry with dark wavy hair and hazel eyes. He had, at an early age, always been curious about what his mother did for a living. He had observed that whenever she wore her necklace of nineteen sixties "love beads" that she seemed to know his thoughts. At first, he thought that it was just her keen intuition and the bond between mother and son, but as he grew older, he could see that it was much more than that. One day, just before his 21st birthday, he decided to follow her when she went out on her daily rounds as a supposed secretary for a firm that manufactured encyclopedias. Curiously enough, he never once saw any of his mother's finished works, so he came to the logical conclusion that she was hiding the truth from him. He tracked her to a warehouse on the edge of town. She stepped into it after raising a horizontal metal door and vanished in the darkness within. He followed, and soon found himself in a high rise apartment on 68th street. He had met Mr. Seven many times before, but was astounded at what he saw. His mother's employer was having a two-way conversation with a rather large sophisticated computer. He was equally surprised to see young Nick as he stepped out of the safe-like transporter. Soon after that, he was made an agent, and given the number 348. Needless to say, Mrs. Roberta Ginsburg was very amused at his new number.

Nick's first assignment was to go to a starship in the distant future and rescue agent 258 from the clutches of the creatures known as the Borg. Mr. Seven, for security reasons, did not tell young agent Ginsburg the identity of the young lady he would be rescuing. Since the assignment was going to be very dangerous, Seven did not wish the Borg to get any clue as to his identity, lest he be assimilated, and had Saavik, whose new number was 202, accompany him. Seven had explained the origins of this machine race to the young man, who learned that the human race was partly responsible for their beginnings. In the early part of the twenty-first century, a SETI scientist by the name of Jackson Roykirk launched a space probe called Nomad. It was to seek out new life and new civilizations off the Earth and learn all that was learnable. Unfortunately, the probe was almost destroyed by a meteor bombardment and encountered an unstable wormhole, which sent it into the distant past. It encountered an alien scientist named Thon-Ru, who repaired the mechanism and altered its programming to seek out perfect life forms. Ru then decided to adapt some of its alien technology to produce the first Borg.

Seven of Nine, completely under the Borg queen's control, stunned the two security guards on sentry duty at Roberta Lincoln's quarters. She entered them and extended her tendrils, injecting the girl with a paralyzer and nano probes, producing a Borg communication node on her forehead, connecting her to the collective. Suddenly, there was a tinkling sound behind her. Before she could turn to look to see who it was, she was stunned into unconsciousness, at the same time having her link to the collective permanently severed. However, before Nick and Saavik could get to agent 258, the Borg queen materialized, lifted the unconscious blonde girl out of her bed, and swiftly dematerialized with her.

.


	36. The Nick of Time

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 36

Upon his return from his nearly fatal accident on the deck of the aircraft carrier Enterprise in the latter part of the twentieth century, Captain Chekov was shocked to learn that Miss Lincoln had been abducted by the fearsome species of machine beings called the Borg. He, of course, wanted to help rescue her, but knew that such a venture would be way too risky for several reasons, the first being that he was one of a very few who knew the name and location of Gary Seven's secret base of operations. If he were assimilated by the Borg, it could mean the end of Seven's covert MIB organization and quite possibly the end of the world as the denizens of the twentieth century knew it. Even though the inhabitants of this present era were primitive by both Seven's and Chekov's standards, they were not dummies and they would be easy prey for the Borg, even if they were a part of a pre-warp civilization. Seven knew that his newest agents were inexperienced, but they, like Roberta, had to start gaining experience somehow and he became more confidant of their success after the Q informed them that he was going to help with Roberta's rescue as well.

Seven had another concern. He knew that they had not seen the last of Alfred Bester. Delenn and Draal and several fleeing telepaths still knew about the newly discovered Guardian portal deep within Epsilon Three. Recently, Draal had informed him that the Psi Corps had discovered that several new telepaths had escaped Bester's talons and had been ferried down to the planet by the ambassador and ushered into the portal. Bester's lack of knowledge about the Federation universe and the portal worked to Delenn's advantage for a short time, but soon Bester found out where the rogue telepaths had gone. What he still did not know was where and when they had gone once they disappeared through the portal. Seven knew, however, that most of them had been transported to the latter part of the twentieth century on Earth in the year 1969 and were interspersed in the large gathering crowd of onlookers and revelers at the soon-to-be music festival called Woodstock, disguised as hippies. Also, many of Seven's operatives, some of who were telepathic aliens, were in the crowd, there to make sure Bester did not get his grubby paws on any of the fleeing refugees.

Even though it had been dark in the room, Nick and Saavik had both recognized the Borg's unfortunate captive. Nick wondered aloud why Seven did not tell them the identity of agent 258. He felt it was now imperative that they must rescue his future mother from the machine beings. Saavik conjectured that there were possible security concerns and that if the Borg found out that Nick was the future son of Roberta Lincoln, then he might never be born, or worse, he could be assimilated by the Borg himself, thus creating a strange paradox. He could exist as a Borg, but not as Roberta's son. He watched with a worried expression as his half Vulcan acquaintance went to a nearby com panel to set off the intruder alert alarm that the Borg queen had disengaged. He noticed the two security guards near the threshold of the guest quarters, still unconscious from being stunned by Seven of Nine's dropped phaser. Nick was about to pick it up when Saavik stopped him, telling him to leave it where it lay. Saavik was relieved that the technology had not changed very much in the eighty years between her era and the era they found themselves in.

"What did you do that for?"

"We cannot rescue your mother alone, 348. We will need assistance. If these people on this starship are anything like the Starfleet officers in my era, they will not shoot first and ask questions later."

"I hope you're right, Saavik." Nick said, hearing the footfalls of several security officers, with Commander Tuvok in the lead. They both raised their hands in the air in surrender.

"You are correct, madam." Tuvok said, a phaser set on stun aimed at the duo. "Who are you and what are you doing on Voyager?"

"I am Saavik and this is Nick Ginsburg. Please do not shoot. We are here to rescue Miss Lincoln from the clutches of the machine beings. Mr. Seven sent us."

Tuvok raised his eyebrows in astonishment, recognizing the young man's surname and the name of the half-Vulcan woman.

"Indeed? Two of Supervisor 194's operatives?" They nodded in the affirmative as he then noticed Seven of Nine, also unconscious on the floor and ordered two of his flanking security people to take her to sickbay. "What happened to Seven of Nine?"

"I stunned her with my servo, and at the same time severed her new link with the Borg. We have little time for pleasantries, Mr. Tuvok. Miss Lincoln needs our help."

"We must rescue her, sir. She's my mom. If she isn't rescued, I won't exist."

"I see." Tuvok lowered his weapon and regarded the half Vulcan woman. "Are you the same Saavik who was once an acquaintance of Spock's?"

"Affirmative, sir."

"Astonishing. I will accompany you. We no doubt have had much more experience with the Borg as you and you will need my assistance."

Saavik and Nick did not know that the Q was going to be helping in Roberta's rescue as well, and so welcomed his aid.

When Roberta awakened from sleep, she soon discovered that she was paralyzed from the neck down and was in some sort of metal body restraint. Fear gripped her and she felt as helpless as the unfortunate man in "The Fly" as he was trapped in a spider's web and was about to be devoured. She also had a splitting headache, as if she had spent the night with brand new brush rollers in her hair and the bristles were digging into her flesh. She began to whimper in terror, trying hard not to faint as she became more aware of her surroundings. It was obvious she was no longer on Voyager. Tuvok and the two new MIB agents stayed out of sight as much as they could, and , strangely, the Borg who did see them passed them by as if they were not there. Tuvok explained that they did not appear to be a threat and therefore were being ignored. A disembodied woman who could not possibly be alive floated towards her, and Roberta noticed her cold steely eyes. She shut her own, trying without success to erase the image from her mind. When she opened them again, the woman with just a head and a torso had been set in a mechanical body. She stared at her in shock and dismay. The woman reached up and touched her face with a cold mechanical hand. The sensation sent chills down her spine and she turned away from the alien's touch as she spoke softly to her.

"Do not be afraid, Miss Lincoln. I will not harm you."

"Wh—what do you want with me?"

"You are my guest. I simply want to ask you something." The mechanical woman looked her over as if she were a bug under a microscope. "By the way, there is no need to verbalize your thoughts. We can hear you plainly." The Borg paused for a moment as if in thought and then continued. "You are wondering how I can possibly be alive without a body. It is very simple, my dear. I am mostly a machine. Now that I have answered your question, please tell me where Mr. Seven's secret planet is located. We wish to … recruit him."

"You mean you wish to assimilate him. I don't know what you're talking about, you weird-looking sawed-off cow."

"You are very brave. I like that. I wish to keep you. We have ways of finding out what we want to know, Roberta. Resistance is futile." The Borg queen reached for her necklace of Spican flame gems and as soon as she touched it, she was nearly electrocuted. The Borg vessel and its queen were suddenly disabled and Roberta was released from her restraints. She crumpled towards the deck, still unable to move, and passed out from the pain of her new implants. Tuvok caught her and handed her over to Saavik. Then Nick, Saavik, and Roberta were whisked from the Borg cube by the Q back to the safety of Seven's apartment as Tuvok was beamed back to Voyager. He awakened his captain and they sped out of the area at maximum warp.


	37. A Temporary Death

The Littlest Rogue, chapter 37

Alfred Bester stood in front of the activated glowing metallic interdimensional portal, looking over at the lifeless Minbari corpse, who was still hooked up to the immense and complex control center that kept the planet Epsilon Three from destroying itself. He had just forced the former caretaker to activate the portal called the Guardian of Infinity, now knowing where and how the fleeing rogue Psi Corps fugitives had escaped his clutches. Bester had read in the unfortunate alien's mind that he had not expected the psi cop to arrive in the manner that he did. Instead of using his personal shuttle, Bester had activated the small device he had stolen from Zathros and Garibaldi, and had figured out how to use it by picking the minds of Zathros' brothers, who were out for revenge and pursuing him for the murder of their identical sibling. Already, Bester could feel tremors as the planet was becoming unstable for lack of a caretaker, but he didn't care. Even if the planet destroyed itself, the newly discovered portal and the orbiting space station named Babylon Five, he had a way to get back home. Before Draal died from a PPG gun blast to his chest, he gasped out the location of the fleeing telepaths, thinking he had little more to lose and knowing that it would be very hard for Bester to track down even one. Bester heard one word before Draal died: "Woodstock". The word held little meaning for Alfred. He was born on Mars and raised by the Psi Corps in the twenty-third century. He knew very little about the historic events that led up to a four-day concert held at a converted dairy farm in the state of New York, three centuries before he was born. Bester stepped over to the lifeless corpse, wisps of smoke emanating from the dead alien's chest and the scent of seared flesh entering his nostrils as he made sure of his handiwork. Satisfied that the Minbari was dead, Bester stepped into the Guardian portal and vanished in a green mist, in a crazy single-minded pursuit of his quarry.

The invisible Q who called himself Quinn watched as the evil madman departed, making sure that Bester had not picked up his presence with his telepathic abilities. Fortunately, the Q's were more powerful. He had just returned after saving Miss Lincoln from a fate worse than death. Not wishing the newly discovered Guardian portal and Psi Corps escape route or the orbiting Babylon Five space station to be destroyed, he quickly healed and revived the Minbari caretaker.

Since she had been freed from the Shadow implants, Bester's ex-lover Carolyn Sanderson had become friends with Ambassador Delenn. She had been informed by her new friend about the new portal within Epsilon Three and about Gary Seven in the other dimension and had decided to aid the Minbari spiritual leader and ambassador in her efforts to make sure the rogue telepaths made clean getaways via the Guardian portal. Both women had also become new part-time agents for Supervisor 194. Carolyn was happy to be freed from the Shadow implants. Delenn, after learning what Bester had done to Draal, now had an even better reason to aid fleeing human Psi Corps refugees. She hated Bester for killing her friend as much as she had hated humans in general in the past for killing her friend from the warrior caste Duk'hat. She now knew that not all humans were evil, but Bester certainly was. Even though Draal was now alive and well, thanks to the Q being from the parallel universe, Delenn hated Bester enough to kill him for what he did to her dear friend. In revenge, she now felt that she should help the fleeing rogue telepaths escape the evil Psi Corps by any means possible. Delenn made a call to her new friend Carolyn on a secure channel, asking about Woodstock. Unlike her former lover, Carolyn knew the history of the famous concert, held on a dairy farm in the state of New York. She had long been a student of Earth history and had become a patron of classical music from that era, studying the events leading up to the historic rock concert, including the Vietnam War, which was one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in the history of her planet. The concert was partly political in nature, meant to impress on the powers that were of the uselessness of the war. The impact of this incredible concert was still being felt to a much smaller degree even in her century. She was also aware that Bester would have a very difficult time tracking down rogue telepaths, being that the concert had been attended by a half a million people and that Seven and Draal had disguised the rogue telepaths as hippies. The two men knew that the telepaths would adapt very quickly because of their unique abilities. Also, there was very little chance that they would be ratted out by other concert attendees, being that most in the crowd were into such things as flower power, transcendental meditation and pot. They would not think anything of a few telepaths in their midst, except that they were "cool", "groovy" or "far out".

The Borg queen awoke to find that the biological part of her had been disengaged from her mechanical body. She was lying helpless on the cold deck of the Borg ship, for a time, flopping around like a fish out of water. Still tingling from the effects of the massive electrical shock that had disabled the entire collective, she inched herself with her metal spine painfully and meticulously back into her Borg body as it slowly came back into working order. As it did and she recovered, she stepped over to the sensors. Voyager was nowhere to be found. The Q, before departing to help Draal, had masked the warp signature of Voyager as simple background radiation from a nearby nebula so the Borg would not be able to pursue them. The Borg queen also realized that her young captive had somehow escaped as well and that they had been foiled in their attempts to extract the information about Seven's base of operations. The Borg queen knew also that the young girl named Roberta had no knowledge whatsoever of the secret planet, due to the Borg implants they had given to her. It would be nearly impossible to keep any kind of a secret from the collective, so the queen knew that the girl was telling the truth when she said she had no idea what she was talking about. She, however, was aware of the fact that the girl was not married to Chakotay, having spied on her through Seven of Nine's ocular implant while she was recovering from a head injury in sickbay. She considered that there might be other opportunities to abduct Mrs. Chakotay and get the information the collective sought.

Seven, Chekov, O'Neil and Mrs. Chakotay gasped with concern as Miss Lincoln appeared inside the safe-like transporter with help from Quinn and his two newest agents in a flash of light. Saavik and Nick were holding her up and Seven instructed them to put her on the brown leather couch beside the computer and told Nick to depart back to the future before his mother awakened and he complied, giving her a gentle and compassionate kiss on the unaffected part of her forehead. She was unconscious, probably from shock and her head was drooping on her chest, but Seven could see her Borg implants, which were scanned by his Beta Five computer and thankfully found to be inactive. Her face was gray and drawn, and Seven knew just by looking at her that she had been partially assimilated. She would quite probably need a twenty-fourth century doctor to remove the cybernetic devices imbedded in her skull, not to mention the months of therapy she would need to recover from the brutal treatment she had suffered at the hands of the Borg. Mrs. Chakotay stared at her identical counterpart from this dimension, aghast and a bit ashamed that the poor girl had experienced such brutality on her behalf. Amazed at Miss Lincoln's resemblance to herself, she reached out with her hand to gently touch her pale cheek. The girl flinched, her eyes still closed, and she screamed in terror. Chekov picked up that Miss Lincoln was dreaming that she was once more being touched by the cold metal hand of the Borg queen. Mrs. Chakotay quickly withdrew her hand, also picking up the fact of her counterpart's nightmarish ordeal. She whispered a sincere apology to her identical double, who was now afraid to open her eyes, thinking that she was still aboard the Borg ship. Mr. Seven asked Chekov to go to the hidden communications panel behind the round wall hanging to contact Starfleet Temporal Medical. Before he arrived, Quinn appeared and offered to remove the cybernetic devices himself. With their consent, they were gone with a wave of his hand.


	38. Woodstock

The Littlest Rogue, Chapter 38

Scarlet O'Neil, after finally convincing a recovering Miss Lincoln that she was in no way in league with the evil psi cop Alfred Bester from the other dimension, had been in contact with her Dowd father and the Q who called himself Quinn. They had become very fond of little Alice Bester and her mother, and had asked Scarlet to inquire of Mr. Seven if it would be all right for little Alice to get a taste of real history in the making, by transporting her, Isis and her mother from their new home on the planet Betazed to Woodstock for the historic concert. They both assured Scarlet and Mr. Seven that Alice and her mother were in no danger of being caught by Alfred. Also, since the late nineteen sixties was a more innocent time, there were many families with children in attendance as well as the hippies, with little chance of any serious violence. Alice's mother Dinah had recently met Carolyn Sanderson, Bester's ex-lover, who she learned had become a new agent for Mr. Seven's covert organization. It was an awkward meeting at first, but Dinah did not blame Carolyn for getting involved with her ex- husband, being that he was, even in his advanced age, a physically attractive man and very beguiling and Dinah never really loved him anyway. It had been mostly a marriage made by the Psi Corps; the only good thing coming out of it was their darling little girl. Alice had just turned six, and, although she was intrigued by the notion of going to a famous twentieth century Earth rock concert, she was also very frightened at the prospect of seeing her father in the flesh again. The child had had recurring premonitions and nightmares that her father would be there, on the trail of even more fleeing rogue telepaths like her and her mother and harming anyone who got in his way. Alice's mother had long suspected that her ex-husband had a few screws loose, but now she was certain that he was certifiably insane and quite possibly a megalomaniac if he really believed that he could track down a few fleeing rogue telepaths in that sea of people they would soon encounter. Even seeing him in her visions made Alice uneasy, for he seemed to recognize her, and that also scared her. She had a strange connection to her father, even though she did not like him or trust him. To confirm her little daughter's visions, Dinah Bester had asked Mrs. Troi to contact Mr. Seven and ask if this was so. He told them that Alfred had murdered the Minbari caretaker named Draal, almost causing the destruction of Epsilon Three and the orbiting space station named Babylon Five in the parallel universe from which they came. The Q had brought Draal back to life just in time, but Alfred had indeed gone into the past of the alternate universe, tracking down more fleeing rogue telepaths. However, Seven reminded them of the fact that Alfred would not recognize Alice or her mother. Little Alice would be safe as long as she stayed with her mom and did not go wandering off. There was also safety in numbers, and Carolyn had given each of them necklaces like Roberta's, supplied by the Q, which enhanced their natural telepathic abilities.

Miss Lincoln had gathered up enough courage to open her eyes. Her head felt better and she learned that the Q had been kind enough to remove the Borg implants. To say the least, it had not been a pleasant experience, and the vision of the hideous Borg queen was still in her mind. She was also curious as to who had kissed her while she was still semiconscious, vaguely recalling a young man's voice in her mind, calling her "mom" and saying that he loved her. It was a crazy thing to her, being that she was too young to have a twenty-something son and she wasn't even married. Her double Mrs. Chakotay was back in her twenty-fourth century Starfleet uniform, not wanting to steal her counterpart's sexist outdated attire and had returned to her starship called Voyager in her dimension. Miss Lincoln tried to sit up, but soon discovered that she was still suffering from the effects of the Borg paralyzing agent. At first, she was fearful, but she was told by Mr. Seven that the drug that Seven of Nine had unknowingly given to her was only temporary, and that she should recover her mobility in about an hour. She relaxed, finally convinced that she was not experiencing some alien illusion and that she was really home in the twentieth century. She recognized most of the people surrounding the brown leather couch on which she lay, but there were two new faces that she did not. One was a Vulcanian woman named Saavik from the twenty-third century and the other, she learned, was a telepathic human woman from the parallel universe named Carolyn Sanderson. Roberta, still rattled by her experience with the Borg, was starting to wonder if she was cut out for this line of work. Perhaps she should quit while she was ahead. Isis picked up on this thought and informed Mr. Seven of it. Roberta was no longer surprised at telepathic incursions into her private thoughts, and she was glad to see Isis again in human form, but she had not as yet changed her mind about quitting. It was now up to Seven to talk her out of it. He approached her with compassion, understanding why she felt the way she did, but she couldn't quit now. If she did, she would not be able to alter the fate of her dear friend and colleague, Pavel Chekov, nor would she be able to save herself from Bester or from the brain damage inflicted on her by the Jack the Ripper entity when she got older. She would also not meet her future husband at Woodstock, nor would her future son have a part in rescuing her from the Borg. She would also not be able to keep Bester from destroying Woodstock in his attempts to find his prey.

Roberta had been given the week of medical rest leave that she had been promised, even though she had fully recovered physically from her ordeal with the Borg. This time, there was no funny business with being transported to a Federation starship while she was unconscious. It took Roberta a few months to get used to her normal daily routine, for she feared that every time she shut her eyes, she might end up in a place she did not wish to be. Seven had offered to bring a twenty-fourth century counselor to help her cope with the psychological effects of what had happened, but Roberta was keenly aware of the social stigma involved in consulting a "shrink". However, after a while, she relented, for the nightmares from her ordeal had not stopped and it was affecting her work. She found she could not sleep without experiencing the sensations of being unable to move and waking up helpless and in pain from the Borg implants, not knowing what they were going to do to her. It had been a terrifying experience. By the time that Woodstock was announced, the counselor that Mr. Seven had sent had helped her a great deal, at last revealing to her that she was half alien herself, from the same planet that Dinah and her little girl had settled on. She also told her that her captain had also been abducted and assimilated by the Borg, so knew first hand what the young lady was going through. The telepathic woman from the alternate future named Carolyn had also become a good friend to Roberta, telling her of her horrific experience with Shadow implants, which were very similar to Borg technology.

At last, the big day had arrived, and Roberta felt confident in her mission to stop Bester from interfering with Woodstock and his relentless pursuit of the fleeing rogue telepaths from the alternate reality. She was wearing her pink and orange dress with the black sash with the sleeves rolled up because it was hot and muggy outside and had placed her servo in her matching purse. She fingered her necklace nervously as Carolyn drove the jeep they had borrowed from one of her friends. Inside the trunk was an extra heavy duty extension cord, for Mr. Seven had informed them both that Bester was going to destroy one by accident. Roberta saw him and ducked behind a large speaker, fumbling in her purse for her servo, which had been set on heavy stun. She watched as Bester made it on stage, a black entertainer named Jimi Hendrix glaring at him with dismay. She then gasped as she noticed little Alice and her mother in the crowd. Alice smiled and started to wave in recognition, but Dinah stopped her, suddenly realizing that her ex husband was stepping up to a live microphone. Alice stared at her father in dismay as he asked those in attendance if there were any telepaths present. Almost everyone thought that his question was some kind of a joke and raised their hands…everyone except the true telepaths and Alice. The father and daughter locked eyes on each other. Bester stared at the little girl, recognizing her from his dreams, but did not know who she was. As they continued to stare at each other, Roberta came up behind Bester and called him by name. Alfred turned to face the young woman in perplexity, wondering how someone from the twentieth century could possibly know who he was. He heard her thoughts, and came to the conclusion that she must be one of the rogue telepaths he was pursuing. She was saying that compared to the Borg, he was a little pipsqueak, and she was no longer afraid of him. She looked vaguely familiar, but he could not figure out where he had last encountered her. She raised her servo. He smiled, asking if she was going to write him to death, not knowing at first that the pen-like device she was holding was really a powerful futuristic weapon. He soon sensed that she was going to fire it at him, and quickly grabbed it out of her hand, accidentally resetting it to kill. As they struggled, the servo went off and severed an electrical connection on the ground. Astonished at this, Bester paused for a moment. Alice saw that Roberta was in grave danger. She raised her little hands and aimed her fingertips at her father and concentrated, Dinah soon joining in. Suddenly, Alfred forgot why he came to the twentieth century or even why he had come on stage. Roberta quickly retrieved her dropped weapon, reset it back to stun, and fired point blank. Bester fell on the stage in a heap. Not really knowing what had just happened, and wondering how a young chick like her could subdue a grown man, Mr. Hendrix and a young fellow named Maury dragged the crazy cat off the stage. However, at the moment, they could not continue with the concert, for they had no electricity. Roberta quickly ran to her friend's jeep, telling the handsome young dark-haired man named Maury that she had an extra extension cord. He watched as she opened the trunk of her vehicle and Dinah watched in astonishment as both the young man and her ex-husband vanished.

In a few minutes, Maury returned, not recalling where he had disappeared to or even that he did. At that moment, he decided to swear off pot, and helped the young lady with the groovy red necklace take out the heavy cord from the trunk.

After enjoying the historic concert, little Alice and her mother returned to the planet Betazed in the twenty-fourth century with help from the Q, while Roberta, satisfied that her mission was successful, and having acquired a new boyfriend, wished them luck and happiness in the future. Alice and her mother lived happily on the planet Betazed for the rest of their lives.

THE END


End file.
